PSYCHOANALYSIS 

AND  THE 

UNCONSCIOUS 


D.  H.  LAWRENCE 


PAULINE  FORE  MOFFITT 
LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
GENERAL  LIBRARY,  BERKELEY 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

AND  THE 

UNCONSCIOUS 


Psychoanalysis 

and  the 

Unconscious 


BY 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  SELTZER 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 

THOMAS  SELTZER,  INC. 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMEEICA 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.  MORALITY  9 
II.    THE  INCEST  MOTIVE  AND  IDEAL- 
ISM      26 

III.  THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  45 

IV.  THE  CHILD  AND  His  MOTHER  64 
V.    THE  LOVER  AND  THE  BELOVED  83 

VI.    HUMAN   RELATIONS   AND  THE 

UNCONSCIOUS  102 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 
AND  THE 

UNCONSCIOUS 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

and  the 

UNCONSCIOUS 

CHAPTER   I 

PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.  MORALITY 

PSYCHOANALYSIS  has  sprung  many  surprises 
on  us,  performed  more  than  one  volte  face 
before  our  indignant  eyes.  No  sooner  had  we 
got  used  to  the  psychiatric  quack  who  vehe- 
mently demonstrated  the  serpent  of  sex  coiled 
round  the  root  of  all  our  actions,  no  sooner 
had  we  begun  to  feel  honestly  uneasy  about 
our  lurking  complexes,  than  lo  and  behold 
the  psychoanalytic  gentleman  reappeared  on 
the  stage  with  a  theory  of  pure  psychology. 
The  medical  faculty,  which  was  on  hot  bricks 
over  the  therapeutic  innovations,  heaved  a  sigh 

9 


I O     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

of  relief  as  it  watched  the  ground  warming 
under  the  feet  of  the  professional  psycholo- 
gists. 

This,  however,  was  not  the  end.  The  ears 
of  the  ethnologist  began  to  tingle,  the  phil- 
osopher felt  his  gorge  rise,  and  at  last  the 
moralist  knew  he  must  rush  in.  By  this  time 
psychoanalysis  had  become  a  public  danger. 
The  mob  was  on  the  alert.  The  QEdipus  com- 
plex was  a  household  word,  the  incest  motive 
a  commonplace  of  tea-table  chat.  Amateur 
analyses  became  the  vogue.  "Wait  till  youVe 
been  analyzed,"  said  one  man  to  another,  with 
varying  intonation.  A  sinister  look  came  into 
the  eyes  of  the  initiates — the  famous,  or  in- 
famous, Freud  look.  You  could  recognize 
it  everywhere,  wherever  you  went. 

Psychoanalysts  know  what  the  end  will  be. 
They  have  crept  in  among  us  as  healers  and 
physicians;  growing  bolder,  they  have  asserted 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.   MORALITY  1 1 

their  authority  as  scientists;  two  more  minutes 
and  they  will  appear  as  apostles.  Have  we 
not  seen  and  heard  the  ex  cathedra  Jung? 
And  does  it  need  a  prophet  to  discern  that 
Freud  is  on  the  brink  of  a  Weltanschauung — 
or  at  least  a  Menschanschauung,  which  is  a 
much  more  risky  affair?  What  detains  him? 
Two  things.  First  and  foremost,  the  moral 
issue.  And  next,  but  more  vital,  he  can't  get 
down  to  the  rock  on  which  he  must  build  his 
church. 

Let  us  look  to  ourselves.  This  new  doctrine 
—it  will  be  called  no  less — has  been  subtly 
and  insidiously  suggested  to  us,  gradually  in- 
oculated into  us.  It  is  true  that  doctors  are 
the  priests,  nay  worse,  the  medicine-men  of 
our  decadent  society.  Psychoanalysis  has 
made  the  most  of  the  opportunity. 

First  and  foremost  the  issue  is  a  moral  is- 
sue.    It  is  not  here  a  matter  of  reform,  new 


1 2     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

moral  values.  It  is  the  life  or  death  of  all 
morality.  The  leaders  among  the  psycho- 
analysts know  what  they  have  in  hand.  Prob- 
ably most  of  their  followers  are  ignorant,  and 
therefore  pseudo-innocent.  But  it  all  amounts 
to  the  same  thing.  Psychoanalysis  is  out,  un- 
der a  therapeutic  disguise,  to  do  away  entirely 
with  the  moral  faculty  in  man.  Let  us  fling 
the  challenge,  and  then  we  can  take  sides  in 
all  fairness. 

The  psychoanalytic  leaders  know  what  they 
are  about,  and  shrewdly  keep  quiet,  going 
gently.  Yet,  however  gently  they  go,  they  set 
the  moral  stones  rolling.  At  every  step  the 
most  innocent  and  unsuspecting  analyst  starts 
a  little  landslide.  The  old  world  is  yielding 
under  us.  Without  any  direct  attack,  it  comes 
loose  under  the  march  of  the  psychoanalyst, 
and  we  hear  the  dull  rumble  of  the  incipient 
avalanche.  We  are  in  for  a  debacle. 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  VS.   MORALITY  13 

But  at  least  let  us  know  what  we  are  in  for. 
If  we  are  to  rear  a  serpent  against  ourselves, 
let  us  at  least  refuse  to  nurse  it  in  our  temples 
or  to  call  it  the  cock  of  Esculapius.  It  is  time 
the  white  garb  of  the  therapeutic  cant  was 
stripped  off  the  psychoanalyst.  And  now  that 
we  feel  the  strange  crackling  and  convulsion 
in  our  moral  foundations,  let  us  at  least  look 
at  the  house  which  we  are  bringing  down  over 
our  heads  so  blithely. 

Long  ago  we  watched  in  frightened  antici- 
pation when  Freud  set  out  on  his  adventure 
into  the  hinterland  of  human  consciousness. 
He  was  seeking  for  the  unknown  sources  of 
the  mysterious  stream  of  consciousness.  Im- 
mortal phrase  of  the  immortal  James!  Oh 
stream  of  hell  which  undermined  my  adoles- 
cence! The  stream  of  consciousness!  I  felt  it 
streaming  through  my  brain,  in  at  one  ear  and 
out  at  the  other.  And  again  I  was  sure  it 


14     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

went  round  in  my  cranium,  like  Homer's 
Ocean,  encircling  my  established  mind.  And 
sometimes  I  felt  it  must  bubble  up  in  the  cere- 
bellum and  wind  its  way  through  all  the  con- 
volutions of  the  true  brain.  Horrid  stream! 
Whence  did  it  come,  and  whither  was  it 
bound?  The  stream  of  consciousness! 

And  so,  who  could  remain  unmoved  when 
Freud  seemed  suddenly  to  plunge  towards  the 
origins?  Suddenly  he  stepped  out  of  the  con- 
scious into  the  unconscious,  out  of  the  every- 
where into  the  nowhere,  like  some  supreme 
explorer.  He  walks  straight  through  the  wall 
of  sleep,  and  we  hear  him  rumbling  in  the 
cavern  of  dreams.  The  impenetrable  is  not 
impenetrable,  unconsciousness  is  not  nothing- 
ness. It  is  sleep,  that  wall  of  darkness  which 
limits  our  day.  Walk  bang  into  the  wall,  and 
behold  the  wall  isn't  there.  It  is  the  vast  dark- 
ness of  a  cavern's  mouth,  the  cavern  of  an- 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.   MORALITY  15 

terior  darkness  whence  issues  the  stream  of 
consciousness. 

With  dilated  hearts  we  watched  Freud  dis- 
appearing into  the  cavern  of  darkness,  which 
is  sleep  and  unconsciousness  to  us,  darkness 
which  issues  in  the  foam  of  all  our  day's  con- 
sciousness. He  was  making  for  the  origins. 
We  watched  his  ideal  candle  flutter  and  go 
small.  Then  we  waited,  as  men  do  wait,  al- 
ways expecting  the  wonder  of  wonders.  He 
came  back  with  dreams  to  sell. 

But  sweet  heaven,  what  merchandise! 
What  dreams,  dear  heart!  What  was  there  in 
the  cave?  Alas  that  we  ever  looked!  Noth- 
ing but  a  huge  slimy  serpent  of  sex,  and  heaps 
of  excrement,  and  a  myriad  repulsive  little 
horrors  spawned  between  sex  and  excrement. 

Is  it  true?  Does  the  great  unknown  of  sleep 
contain  nothing  else?  No  lovely  spirits  in  the 
anterior  regions  of  our  being?  None!  Im- 


1 6     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

agine  the  unspeakable  horror  of  the  repres- 
sions Freud  brought  home  to  us.  Gagged, 
bound,  maniacal  repressions,  sexual  com- 
plexes, faecal  inhibitions,  dream-monsters. 
We  tried  to  repudiate  them.  But  no,  they 
were  there,  demonstrable.  These  were  the 
horrid  things  that  ate  our  souls  and  caused 
our  helpless  neuroses. 

We  had  felt  that  perhaps  we  were  wrong 
inside,  but  we  had  never  imagined  it  so  bad. 
However,  in  the  name  of  healing  and  medi- 
cine we  prepared  to  accept  it  all.  If  it  was 
all  just  a  result  of  illness,  we  were  prepared  to 
go  through  with  it.  The  analyst  promised  us 
that  the  tangle  of  complexes  would  be  un- 
ravelled, the  obsessions  would  evaporate,  the 

monstrosities  would  dissolve,  sublimate,  when 
brought  into  the  light  of  day.  Once  all  the 
dream-horrors  were  translated  into  full  con- 
sciousness, they  would  sublimate  into — well, 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.  MORALITY  17 

we  don't  quite  know  what.  But  anyhow,  they 
would  sublimate.  Such  is  the  charm  of  a  new 
phrase  that  we  accepted  this  sublimation  proc- 
ess without  further  question.  If  our  com- 
plexes were  going  to  sublimate  once  they  were 
surgically  exposed  to  full  mental  conscious- 
ness, why,  best  perform  the  operation. 

Thus  analysis  set  off  gaily  on  its  therapeutic 
course.  But  like  Hippolytus,  we  ran  too  near 
the  sea's  edge.  After  all,  if  complexes  exist 
only  as  abnormalities  which  can  be  removed, 
psychoanalysis  has  not  far  to  go.  Our  own 
horses  ran  away  with  us.  We  began  to  realize 
that  complexes  were  not  just  abnormalities. 
They  were  part  of  the  stock-in-trade  of  the 
normal  unconscious.  The  only  abnormality, 
so  far,  lies  in  bringing  them  into  consciousness. 

This  creates  a  new  issue.  Psychoanalysis, 
the  moment  it  begins  to  demonstrate  the  nature 
of  the  unconscious,  is  assuming  the  role  of  psy- 


1 8     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

chology.  Thus  the  new  science  of  psychology 
proceeds  to  inform  us  that  our  complexes  are 
not  just  mere  interlockings  in  the  mechanism 
of  the  psyche,  as  was  taught  by  one  of  the 
first  and  most  brilliant  of  the  analysts,  a  man 
now  forgotten.  He  fully  realized  that  even 
the  psyche  itself  depends  on  a  certain  organic, 
mechanistic  activity,  even  as  life  depends  on 
the  mechanistic  organism  of  the  body.  The 
mechanism  of  the  psyche  could  have  its 
hitches,  certain  parts  could  stop  working,  even 
as  the  parts  of  the  body  can  stop  their  func- 
tioning. This  arrest  in  some  part  of  the  func- 
tioning psyche- gave  rise  to  a  complex,  even 
as  the  stopping  of  one  little  cog-wheel  in  a 
machine  will  arrest  a  whole  section  of  that 
machine.  This  was  the  origin  of  the  complex- 
theory,  purely  mechanistic.  Now  the  analyst 
found  that  a  complex  did  not  necessarily  van- 
ish when  brought  into  consciousness.  Why 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.   MORALITY  19 

should  it?  Hence  he  decided  that  it  did  not 
arise  from  the  stoppage  of  any  little  wheel. 
For  it  refused  to  disappear,  no  matter  how 
many  psychic  wheels  were  started.  Finally, 
then,  a  complex  could  not  be  regarded  as  the 
result  of  an  inhibition. 

Here  is  the  new  problem.  If  a  complex  is 
not  caused  by  the  inhibition  of  some  so-called 
normal  sex-impulse,  what  on  earth  is  it  caused 
by?  It  obviously  refuses  to  sublimate — or  to 
come  undone  when  exposed  and  prodded.  It 
refuses  to  answer  to  the  promptings  of  normal 
sex-impulse.  You  can  remove  all  possible  in- 
hibitions of  the  normal  sex  desire,  and  still 
you  cannot  remove  the  complex.  All  you  have 
done  is  to  make  conscious  a  desire  which 
previously  was  unconscious. 

This  is  the  moral  dilemma  of  psychoanal- 
ysis. The  analyst  set  out  to  cure  neurotic  hu- 
manity by  removing  the  cause  of  the  neurosis. 


20     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

He  finds  that  the  cause  of  neurosis  lies  in  some 
unadmitted  sex  desire.  After  all  he  has  said 
about  inhibition  of  normal  sex,  he  is  brought 
at  last  to  realize  that  at  the  root  of  almost 
every  neurosis  lies  some  incest-craving,  and 
that  this  incest-craving  is  not  the  result  of  in- 
hibition of  normal  sex-craving.  Now  see  the 
dilemma — it  is  a  fearful  one.  If  the  incest- 
craving  is  not  the  outcome  of  any  inhibition 
of  normal  desire,  if  it  actually  exists  and  re- 
fuses to  give  way  before  any  criticism,  what 
then?  What  remains  but  to  accept  it  as  part 
of  the  normal  sex-manifestation? 

Here  is  an  issue  which  analysis  is  perfectly 
willing  to  face.  Among  themselves  the  ana- 
lysts are  bound  to  accept  the  incest-craving  as 
part  of  the  normal  sexuality  of  man,  normal, 
but  suppressed,  because  of  moral  and  perhaps 
biological  fear.  Once,  however,  you  accept  the 
incest-craving  as  part  of  the  normal  sexuality 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  VS.   MORALITY  21 

of  man,  you  must  remove  all  repression  of 
incest  itself.  In  fact,  you  must  admit  incest 
as  you  now  admit  sexual  marriage,  as  a  duty 
even.  Since  at  last  it  works  out  that  neurosis 
is  not  the  result  of  inhibition  of  so-called  nor- 
mal sex,  but  of  inhibition  of  incest-craving. 
Any  inhibition  must  be  wrong,  since  inevitably 
in  the  end  it  causes  neurosis  and  insanity. 
Therefore  the  inhibition  of  incest-craving  is 
wrong,  and  this  wrong  is  the  cause  of  prac- 
tically all  modern  neurosis  and  insanity. 

Psychoanalysis  will  never  openly  state  this 
conclusion.  But  it  is  to  this  conclusion  that 
every  analyst  must,  willy-nilly,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  bring  his  patient. 

Trigant  Burrow  says  that  Freud's  uncon- 
scious does  but  represent  our  conception  of 
conscious  sexual  life  as  this  latter  exists  in  a 
state  of  repression.  Thus  Freud's  unconscious 
amounts  practically  to  no  more  than  our  re- 


22      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

pressed  incest  impulses.  Again,  Burrow  says 
that  it  is  knowledge  of  sex  that  constitutes  sin, 
and  not  sex  itself.  It  is  when  the  mind  turns 
to  consider  and  know  the  great  affective-pas- 
sional functions  and  emotions  that  sin  enters. 
Adam  and  Eve  fell,  not  because  they  had  sex, 
or  even  because  they  committed  the  sexual  act, 
but  because  they  became  aware  of  their  sex 
and  of  the  possibility  of  the  act.  When  sex 
became  to  them  a  mental  object — that  is,  when 
they  discovered  that  they  could  deliberately 
enter  upon  and  enjoy  and  even  provoke  sexual 
activity  in  themselves,  then  they  were  cursed 
and  cast  out  of  Eden.  Then  man  became  self- 
responsible;  he  entered  on  his  own  career. 

Both  these  assertions  by  Burrow  seem  to  us 
brilliantly  true.  But  must  we  inevitably  draw 
the  conclusion  psychoanalysis  draws?  Be- 
cause we  discover  in  the  unconscious  the  re- 
pressed body  of  our  incest-craving,  and  be- 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  VS.  MORALITY  23 

cause  the  recognition  of  desire,  the  making  a 
mental  objective  of  a  certain  desire  causes  the 
introduction  of  the  sin  motive,  the  desire  in 
itself  being  beyond  criticism  or  moral  judg- 
ment, must  we  therefore  accept  the  incest-crav- 
ing as  part  of  our  natural  desire  and  proceed 
to  put  it  into  practice,  as  being  at  any  rate  a 
lesser  evil  than  neurosis  and  insanity? 

It  is  a  question.  One  thing,  however,  psy- 
choanalysis all  along  the  line  fails  to  deter- 
mine, and  that  is  the  nature  of  the  pristine  un- 
conscious in  man.  The  incest-craving  is  or  is 
not  inherent  in  the  pristine  psyche.  When 
Adam  and  Eve  became  aware  of  sex  in  them- 
selves, they  became  aware  of  that  which  was 
pristine  in  them,  and  which  preceded  all 
knowing.  But  when  the  analyst  discovers  the 
incest  motive  in  the  unconscious,  surely  he  is 
only  discovering  a  term  of  humanity's  re- 
pressed idea  of  sex.  It  is  not  even  suppressed 


24     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

sex-consciousness,  but  repressed.  That  is,  it 
is  nothing  pristine  and  anterior  to  mentality. 
It  is  in  itself  the  mind's  ulterior  motive.  That 
is,  the  incest-craving  is  propagated  in  the 
pristine  unconscious  by  the  mind  itself,  even 
though  unconsciously.  The  mind  acts  as  in- 
cubus and  procreator  of  its  own  horrors,  de- 
liberately unconsciously.  And  the  incest  mo- 
tive is  in  its  origin  not  a  pristine  impulse,  but 
a  logical  extension  of  the  existent  idea  of  sex 
and  love.  The  mind,  that  is,  transfers  the  idea 
of  incest  into  the  affective-passional  psyche, 
and  keeps  it  there  as  a  repressed  motive. 

This  is  as  yet  a  mere  assertion.  It  cannot  be 
made  good  until  we  determine  the  nature  of 
the  true,  pristine  unconscious,  in  which  all  our 
genuine  impulse  arises — a  very  different  affair 
from  that  sack  of  horrors  which  psychoana- 
lysts would  have  us  believe  is  source  of  mo- 
tivity.  The  Freudian  unconscious  is  the  cellar 


PSYCHOANALYSIS  vs.  MORALITY  25 

in  which  the  mind  keeps  its  own  bastard 
spawn.  The  true  unconscious  is  the  well-head, 
the  fountain  of  real  motivity.  The  sex  of 
which  Adam  and  Eve  became  conscious  de- 
rived from  the  very  God  who  bade  them  be 
not  conscious  of  it — -it  was  not  spawn  produced 
by  secondary  propagation  from  the  mental 
consciousness  itself. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  INCEST  MOTIVE  AND  IDEALISM 

IT  IS  obvious  we  cannot  recover  our  moral 
footing  until  we  can  in  some  way  determine 
the  true  nature  of  the  unconscious.  The  word 
unconscious  itself  is  a  mere  definition  by  nega- 
tion and  has  no  positive  meaning.  Freud  no 
doubt  prefers  it  for  this  reason.  He  rejects 
subconscious  and  preconscious,  because  both 
these  would  imply  a  sort  of  nascent  conscious- 
ness, the  shadowy  half-consciousness  which 
precedes  mental  realization.  And  by  his  un- 
conscious he  intends  no  such  thing.  He  wishes 
rather  to  convey,  we  imagine,  that  which  re- 
coils from  consciousness,  that  which  reacts  in 
the  psyche  away  from  mental  consciousness. 

26 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      27 

His  unconscious  is,  we  take  it,  that  part  of  the 
human  consciousness  which,  though  mental, 
ideal  in  its  nature,  yet  is  unwilling  to  expose 
itself  to  full  recognition,  and  so  recoils  back 
into  the  affective  regions  and  acts  there  as  a 
secret  agent,  unconfessed,  unadmitted,  potent, 
and  usually  destructive.  The  whole  body  of 
our  repressions  makes  up  our  unconscious. 

The  question  lies  here:  whether  a  repres- 
sion is  a  primal  impulse  which  has  been  de- 
terred from  fulfilment,  or  whether  it  is  an 
idea  which  is  refused  enactment.  Is  a  repres- 
sion a  repressed  passional  impulse,  or  is  it  an 
idea  which  we  suppress  and  refuse  to  put  into 
practice — nay,  which  we  even  refuse  to  own  at 
all,  a  disowned,  outlawed  idea,  which  exists 
rebelliously  outside  the  pale? 

Man  can  inhibit  the  true  passional  impulses 
and  so  produce  a  derangement  in  the  psyche. 
This  is  a  truism  nowadays,  and  we  are  grate- 


28      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

ful  to  psychoanalysis  for  helping  to  make  it  so. 
But  man  can  do  more  than  this.  Finding  him- 
self in  a  sort  of  emotional  cul  de  sac,  he  can 
proceed  to  deduce  from  his  given  emotional 
and  passional  premises  conclusions  which  are 
not  emotional  or  passional  at  all,  but  just 
logical,  abstract,  ideal.  That  is,  a  man  finds 
it  impossible  to  realize  himself  in  marriage. 
He  recognizes  the  fact  that  his  emotional,  even 
passional,  regard  for  his  mother  is  deeper  than 
it  ever  could  be  for  a  wife.  This  makes  him 
unhappy,  for  he  knows  that  passional  com- 
munion is  not  complete  unless  it  be  also  sexual. 
He  has  a  body  of  sexual  passion  which  he  can- 
not transfer  to  a  wife.  He  has  a  profound 
love  for  his  mother.  Shut  in  between  walls  of 
tortured  and  increasing  passion,  he  must  find 
some  escape  or  fall  down  the  pit  of  insanity 
and  death.  What  is  the  only  possible  escape? 
To  seek  in  the  arms  of  the  mother  the  refuge 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      29 

which  offers  nowhere  else.  And  so  the  incest- 
motive  is  born.  All  the  labored  explanations 
of  the  psychoanalysts  are  unnecessary.  The 
incest  motive  is  a  logical  deduction  of  the  hu- 
man reason,  which  has  recourse  to  this  last 
extremity,  to  save  itself.  Why  is  the  human 
reason  in  peril?  That  is  another  story.  At 
the  moment  we  are  merely  considering  the 
origin  of  the  incest  motive. 

The  logical  conclusion  of  incest  is,  of  course, 
a  profound  decision  in  the  human  soul,  a  de- 
cision affecting  the  deepest  passional  centers. 
It  rouses  the  deepest  instinctive  opposition. 
And  therefore  it  must  be  kept  secret  until  this 
opposition  is  either  worn  away  or  persuaded 
away.  Hence  the  repression  and  ultimate  dis- 
closure. 

Now  here  we  see  the  secret  working  of  the 
process  of  idealism.  By  idealism  we  under- 
stand the  motivizing  of  the  great  affective 


30     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

sources  by  means  of  ideas  mentally  derived. 
As  for  example  the  incest  motive,  which  is 
first  and  foremost  a  logical  deduction  made  by 
the  human  reason,  even  if  unconsciously  made, 
and  secondly  is  introduced  into  the  affective, 
passional  sphere,  where  it  now  proceeds  to 
serve  as  a  principle  for  action. 

This  motivizing  of  the  passional  sphere 
from  the  ideal  is  the  final  peril  of  human  con- 
sciousness. It  is  the  death  of  all  spontaneous, 
creative  life,  and  the  substituting  of  the 
mechanical  principle. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  ideal  becomes  a  me- 
chanical principle,  if  it  be  applied  to  the  af- 
fective soul  as  a  fixed  motive.  An  ideal 
established  in  control  of  the  passional  soul  is 
no  more  and  no  less  than  a  supreme  machine- 
principle.  And  a  machine,  as  we  know,  is  the 
active  unit  of  the  material  world.  Thus  we 
see  how  it  is  that  in  the  end  pure  idealism  is 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      31 

ideal  peoples  are  the  most  completely  ma- 
identical  with  pure  materialism,  and  the  most 
terial.  Ideal  and  material  are  identical.  The 
ideal  is  but  the  god  in  the  machine — the  little, 
fixed,  machine  principle  which  works  the  hu- 
man psyche  automatically. 

We  are  now  in  the  last  stages  of  idealism. 
And  psychoanalysis  alone  has  the  courage 
necessary  to  conduct  us  through  these  last 
stages.  The  identity  of  love  with  sex,  the 
single  necessity  for  fulfilment  through  love, 
these  are  our  fixed  ideals.  We  must  fulfil  these 
ideals  in  their  extremity.  And  this  brings  us 
finally  to  incest,  even  incest-worship.  We 
have  no  option,  whilst  our  ideals  stand. 

Why?  Because  incest  is  the  logical  con- 
clusion of  our  ideals,  when  these  ideals  have 
to  be  carried  into  passional  effect.  And  ideal- 
ism has  no  escape  from  logic.  And  once  he 
has  built  himself  in  the  shape  of  any  ideal, 


32      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

man  will  go  to  any  logical  length  rather  than 
abandon  his  ideal  corpus.  Nay,  some  great 
cataclysm  has  to  throw  him  down  and  destroy 
the  whole  fabric  of  his  life  before  the  motor- 
principle  of  his  dominant  ideal  is  destroyed. 
Hence  psychoanalysis  as  the  advance-guard  of 
science,  the  evangel  of  the  last  ideal  liberty. 
For  of  course  there  is  a  great  fascination  in  a 
completely  effected  idealism.  Man  is  then 
undisputed  master  of  his  own  fate,  and  captain 
of  his  own  soul.  But  better  say  engine-driver, 
for  in  truth  he  is  no  more  than  the  little  god 
in  the  machine,  this  master  of  fate.  He  has 
invented  his  own  automatic  principles,  and  he 
works  himself  according  to  them,  like  any 
little  mechanic  inside  the  works. 

But  ideal  or  not,  we  are  all  of  us  between 
the  pit  and  the  pendulum,  or  the  walls  of  red- 
hot  metal,  as  may  be.  If  we  refuse  the 
Freudian  pls-aller  as  a  means  of  escape,  we 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      33 

have  still  to  find  some  way  out.  For  there  we 
are,  all  of  us,  trapped  in  a  corner  where  we 
cannot,  and  simply  do  not  know  how  to  fulfil 
our  own  natures,  passionally.  We  don't  know 
in  which  way  fulfilment  lies.  If  psychoana- 
lysis discovers  incest,  small  blame  to  it. 

Yet  we  do  know  this  much :  that  the  pushing 
of  the  ideal  to  any  further  lengths  will  not 
avail  us  anything.  We  have  actually  to  go 
back  to  our  own  unconscious.  But  not  to  the 
unconscious  which  is  the  inverted  reflection  of 
our  ideal  consciousness.  We  must  discover, 
if  we  can,  the  true  unconscious,  where  our  life 
bubbles  up  in  us,  prior  to  any  mentality.  The 
first  bubbling  life  in  us,  which  is  innocent  of 
any  mental  alteration,  this  is  the  unconscious. 
It  is  pristine,  not  in  any  way  ideal.  It  is  the 
spontaneous  origin  from  which  it  behooves  us 
to  live. 

What  then  is  the  true  unconscious?     It  is 


34     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

not  a  shadow  cast  from  the  mind.  It  is  the 
spontaneous  life-motive  in  every  organism. 
Where  does  it  begin?  It  begins  where  life 
begins.  But  that  is  too  vague.  It  is  no  use 
talking  about  life  and  the  unconscious  in  bulk. 
You  can  talk  about  electricity,  because  elec- 
tricity is  a  homogeneous  force,  conceivable 
apart  from  any  incorporation.  But  life  is  in- 
conceivable as  a  general  thing.  It  exists  only 
in  living  creatures.  So  that  life  begins,  now 
as  always,  in  an  individual  living  creature.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  individual  living  creature 
is  the  beginning  of  life,  every  time  and  always, 
and  life  has  no  beginning  apart  from  this. 
Any  attempt  at  a  further  generalization  takes 
us  merely  beyond  the  consideration  of  life  into 
the  region  of  mechanical  homogeneous  force. 
This  is  shown  in  the  cosmologies  of  eastern  re- 
ligions. 

The  beginning  of  life  is  in  the  beginning  of 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      35 

the  first  individual  creature.  You  may  call 
the  naked,  unicellular  bit  of  plasm  the  first 
individual,  if  you  like.  Mentally,  as  far  as 
thinkable  simplicity  goes,  it  is  the  first.  So 
that  we  may  say  that  life  begins  in  the  first 
naked  unicellular  organism.  And  where  life 
begins  the  unconscious  also  begins.  But  mark, 
the  first  naked  unicellular  organism  is  an  indi- 
vidual. It  is  a  specific  individual,  not  a  math- 
ematical unit,  like  a  unit  of  force. 

Where  the  individual  begins,  life  begins. 
The  two  are  inseparable,  life  and  individu- 
ality. And  also,  where  the  individual  begins, 
the  unconscious,  which  is  the  specific  life-mo- 
tive, also  begins.  We  are  trying  to  trace  the 
unconscious  to  its  source.  And  we  find  that 
this  source,  in  all  the  higher  organisms,  is  the 
first  ovule  cell  from  which  an  individual  or- 
ganism arises.  At  the  moment  of  conception, 
when  a  procreative  male  nucleus  fuses  with 


36     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

the  nucleus  of  the  female  germ,  at  that  mo- 
ment does  a  new  unit  of  life,  of  consciousness, 
arise  in  the  universe.  Is  it  not  obvious?  The 
unconscious  has  no  other  source  than  this,  this 
first  fused  nucleus  of  the  ovule. 

Useless  to  talk  about  the  unconscious  as  if 
it  were  a  homogeneous  force  like  electricity. 
You  can  only  deal  with  the  unconscious  when 
you  realize  that  in  every  individual  organism 
an  individual  nature,  an  individual  conscious- 
ness, is  spontaneously  created  at  the  moment 
of  conception.  We  say  created.  And  by 
created  we  mean  spontaneously  appearing  in 
the  universe,  out  of  nothing.  Ex  nlhllo  nihll 
fit.  It  is  true  that  an  individual  is  also  gen- 
erated. By  the  fusion  of  two  nuclei,  male  and 
female,  we  understand  the  process  of  genera- 
tion. And  from  the  process  of  generation  we 
may  justly  look  for  a  new  unit,  according  to 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  As  a  natural  or 


THE   INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      37 

automatic  result  of  the  process  of  generation 
we  may  look  for  a  new  unit  of  existence.  But 
the  nature  of  this  new  unit  must  derive  from 
the  natures  of  the  parents,  also  by  law.  And 
this  we  deny.  We  deny  that  the  nature  of  any 
new  creature  derives  from  the  natures  of  its 
parents.  The  nature  of  the  infant  does  not 
follow  from  the  natures  of  its  parents.  The 
nature  of  the  infant  is  not  just  a  new  permuta- 
tion-and-combination  of  elements  contained 
in  the  natures  of  the  parents.  There  is  in  the 
nature  of  the  infant  that  which  is  utterly  un- 
known in  the  natures  of  the  parents,  something 
which  could  never  be  derived  from  the  natures 
of  all  the  existent  individuals  or  previous  in- 
dividuals. There  is  in  the  nature  of  the  infant 
something  entirely  new,  underived,  underiv- 
able,  something  which  is,  and  which  will  for- 
ever remain,  causeless.  And  this  something 
is  the  unanalyzable,  indefinable  reality  of  in- 


38     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

dividuality.  Every  time  at  the  moment  of 
conception  of  every  higher  organism  an  indi- 
vidual nature  incomprehensibly  arises  in  the 
universe,  out  of  nowhere.  Granted  the  whole 
cause-and-effect  process  of  generation  and 
evolution,  still  the  individual  is  not  explained. 
The  individual  unit  of  consciousness  and  be- 
ing which  arises  at  the  conception  of  every 
higher  organism  arises  by  pure  creation,  by  a 
process  not  susceptible  to  understanding,  a 
process  which  takes  place  outside  the  field  of 
mental  comprehension,  where  mentality, 
which  is  definitely  limited,  cannot  and  does 
not  exist. 

This  causeless  created  nature  of  the  indi- 
vidual being  is  the  same  as  the  old  mystery  of 
the  divine  nature  of  the  soul.  Religion  was 
right  and  science  is  wrong.  Every  individual 
creature  has  a  soul,  a  specific  individual  na- 
ture the  origin  of  which  cannot  be  found 


THE   INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM      39 

in  any  cause-and-effect  process  whatever. 
Cause-and-effect  will  not  explain  even  the 
individuality  of  a  single  dandelion.  There  is 
no  assignable  cause,  and  no  logical  reason,  for 
individuality.  On  the  contrary,  individuality 
appears  in  defiance  of  all  scientific  law,  in  de- 
fiance even  of  reason. 

Having  established  so  much,  we  can  really 
approach  the  unconscious.  By  the  uncon- 
scious we  wish  to  indicate  that  essential  unique 
nature  of  every  individual  creature,  which  is, 
by  its  very  nature,  unanalyzable,  undefinable, 
inconceivable.  It  cannot  be  conceived,  it  can 
only  be  experienced,  in  every  single  instance. 
And  being  inconceivable,  we  will  call  it  the 
unconscious.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  soul  would 
be  a  better  word.  By  the  unconscious  we  do 
mean  the  soul.  But  the  word  soul  has  been 
vitiated  by  the  idealistic  use,  until  nowadays 
it  means  only  that  which  a  man  conceives  him- 


40     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

self  to  be.  And  that  which  a  man  conceives 
himself  to  be  is  something  far  different  from 
his  true  unconscious.  So  we  must  relinquish 
the  ideal  word  soul. 

If,  however,  the  unconscious  is  inconceiv- 
able, how  do  we  know  it  at  all?  We  know  it 
by  direct  experience.  All  the  best  part  of 
knowledge  is  inconceivable.  We  know  the 
sun.  But  we  cannot  conceive  the  sun,  unless 
we  are  willing  to  accept  some  theory  of  burn- 
ing gases,  some  cause-and-effect  nonsense.  And 
even  if  we  do  have  a  mental  conception  of  the 
sun  as  a  sphere  of  blazing  gas — which  it  cer- 
tainly isn't — we  are  just  as  far  from  knowing 
what  blaze  is.  Knowledge  is  always  a  matter 
of  whole  experience,  what  St.  Paul  calls  know- 
ing in  full,  and  never  a  matter  of  mental  con- 
ception merely.  This  is  indeed  the  point  of 
all  full  knowledge:  that  it  is  contained  mainly 
within  the  unconscious,  its  mental  or  conscious 


THE    INCEST    MOTIVE   AND    IDEALISM      41 

reference  being  only  a  sort  of  extract  or 
shadow. 

It  is  necessary  for  us  to  know  the  uncon- 
scious, or  we  cannot  live,  just  as  it  is  necessary 
for  us  to  know  the  sun.  But  we  need  not  ex- 
plain the  unconscious,  any  more  than  we  need 
explain  the  sun.  We  can't  do  either,  anyway. 
We  know  the  sun  by  beholding  him  and  watch- 
ing his  motions  and  feeling  his  changing 
power.  The  same  with  the  unconscious.  We 
watch  it  in  all  its  manifestations,  its  unfolding 
incarnations.  We  watch  it  in  all  its  processes 
and  its  unaccountable  evolutions,  and  these  we 
register. 

For  though  the  unconscious  is  the  creative 
element,  and  though,  like  the  soul,  it  is  beyond 
all  law  of  cause  and  effect  in  its  totality,  yet 
in  its  processes  of  self-realization  it  follows 
the  laws  of  cause  and  effect.  The  processes  of 
cause  and  effect  are  indeed  part  of  the  work- 


42      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

ing  out  of  this  incomprehensible  self-realiza- 
tion of  the  individual  unconscious.  The  great 
laws  of  the  universe  are  no  more  than  the  fixed 
habits  of  the  living  unconscious. 

What  we  must  needs  do  is  to  try  to  trace 
still  further  the  habits  of  the  true  unconscious, 
and  by  mental  recognition  of  these  habits 
break  the  limits  which  we  have  imposed  on 
the  movement  of  the  unconscious.  For  the 
whole  point  about  the  true  unconscious  is  that 
it  is  all  the  time  moving  forward,  beyond  the 
range  of  its  own  fixed  laws  or  habits.  It  is  no 
good  trying  to  superimpose  an  ideal  nature  up- 
on the  unconscious.  We  have  to  try  to  recog- 
nize the  true  nature  and  then  leave  the  uncon- 
scious itself  to  prompt  new  movement  and  new 
being — the  creative  progress. 

What  we  are  suffering  from  now  is  the  re- 
striction of  the  unconscious  within  certain 
ideal  limits.  The  more  we  force  the  ideal  the 


THE   INCEST    MOTIVE   AND   IDEALISM     43 

more  we  rupture  the  true  movement.  Once 
we  can  admit  the  known,  but  incomprehen- 
sible, presence  of  the  integral  unconscious; 
once  we  can  trace  it  home  in  ourselves  and 
follow  its  first  revealed  movements;  once  we 
know  how  it  habitually  unfolds  itself;  once  we 
can  scientifically  determine  its  laws  and  proc- 
esses in  ourselves :  then  at  last  we  can  begin  to 
live  from  the  spontaneous  initial  prompting, 
instead  of  from  the  dead  machine-principles 
of  ideas  and  ideals.  There  is  a  whole  science 
of  the  creative  unconscious,  the  unconscious  in 
its  law-abiding  activities.  And  of  this  science 
we  do  not  even  know  the  first  term.  Yes,  when 
we  know  that  the  unconscious  appears  by  crea- 
tion, as  a  new  individual  reality  in  every 
newly-fertilized  germ-cell,  then  we  know  the 
very  first  item  of  the  new  science.  But  it 
needs  a  super-scientific  grace  before  we  can 
admit  this  first  new  item  of  knowledge.  It 


44     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

means  that  science  abandons  its  intellectualist 
position  and  embraces  the  old  religious  fac- 
ulty. But  it  does  not  thereby  become  less  sci- 
entific, it  only  becomes  at  last  complete  in 
knowledge. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   BIRTH   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS 

IT  IS  useless  to  try  to  determine  what  is 
consciousness  or  what  is  knowledge.  Who 
cares  anyhow,  since  we  know  without  defini- 
tions. But  what  we  fail  to  know,  yet  what  we 
must  know,  is  the  nature  of  the  pristine  con- 
sciousness which  lies  integral  and  progressive 
within  every  functioning  organism.  The  brain 
is  the  seat  of  the  ideal  consciousness.  And 
ideal  consciousness  is  only  the  dead  end  of 
consciousness,  the  spun  silk.  The  vast  bulk  of 
consciousness  is  non-cerebral.  It  is  the  sap 
of  our  life,  of  all  life. 

We  are  forced  to  attribute  to  a  star-fish,  or 
to  a  nettle,  its  own  peculiar  and  integral  con- 

45 


46     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

sciousness.  This  throws  us  at  once  out  of  the 
ideal  castle  of  the  brain  into  the  flux  of  sap- 
consciousness.  But  let  us  not  jump  too  far  in 
one  bound.  Let  us  refrain  from  taking  a  sheer 
leap  down  the  abyss  of  consciousness,  down 
to  the  invertebrates  and  the  protococci.  Let 
us  cautiously  scramble  down  the  human  de- 
clivities. Or  rather  let  us  try  to  start  some- 
where near  the  foot  of  the  calvary  of  human 
consciousness.  Let  us  consider  the  child  in 
the  womb.  Is  the  foetus  conscious?  It  must 
be,  since  it  carries  on  an  independent  and 
progressive  self-development.  This  conscious- 
ness obviously  cannot  be  ideal,  cannot  be  cere- 
bral, since  it  precedes  any  vestige  of  cerebra- 
tion. And  yet  it  is  an  integral,  individual  con- 
sciousness, having  its  own  single  purpose  and 
progression.  Where  can  it  be  centered,  how 
can  it  operate,  before  even  nerves  are  formed? 
For  it  does  steadily  and  persistently  operate, 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  47 

even  spinning  the  nerves  and  brain  as  a  web 
for  its  own  motion,  like  some  subtle  spider. 

What  is  the  spinning  spider  of  the  first  hu- 
man consciousness — or  rather,  where  is  the 
center  at  which  this  consciousness  lies  and 
spins?  Since  there  must  be  a  center  of  con- 
sciousness in  the  tiny  foetus,  it  must  have  been 
there  from  the  very  beginning.  There  it  must 
have  been,  in  the  first  fused  nucleus  of  the 
ovule.  And  if  we  could  but  watch  this  prime 
nucleus,  we  should  no  doubt  realize  that 
throughout  all  the  long  and  incalculable  his- 
tory of  the  individual  it  still  remains  central 
and  prime,  the  source  and  clue  of  the  living 
unconscious,  the  origin.  As  in  the  first  mo- 
ment of  conception,  so  to  the  end  of  life  in  the 
individual,  the  first  nucleus  remains  the  crea- 
tive-productive center,  the  quick,  both  of  con- 
sciousness and  of  organic  development. 

And  where  in  the  developed  foetus  shall  we 


48      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

look  for  this  creative-productive  quick?  Shall 
we  expect  it  in  the  brain  or  in  the  heart? 
Surely  our  own  subjective  wisdom  tells  us, 
what  science  can  verify,  that  it  lies  beneath 
the  navel  of  the  folded  foetus.  Surely  that 
prime  center,  which  is  the  very  first  nucleus 
of  the  fertilized  ovule,  lies  situated  beneath 
the  navel  of  all  womb-born  creatures.  There, 
from  the  beginning,  it  lay  in  its  mysterious  re- 
lation to  the  outer,  active  universe.  There  it 
lay,  perfectly  associated  with  the  parent  body. 
There  it  acted  on  its  own  peculiar  indepen- 
dence, drawing  the  whole  stream  of  creative 
blood  upon  itself,  and,  spinning  within  the 
parental  blood-stream,  slowly  creating  or 
bodying  forth  its  own  incarnate  amplification. 
All  the  time  between  the  quick  of  life  in  the 
foetus  and  the  great  outer  universe  there  ex- 
ists a  perfect  correspondence,  upon  which  cor- 
respondence the  astrologers  based  their  sci- 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  49 

ence  in  the  days  before  mental  consciousness 
had  arrogated  all  knowledge  unto  itself. 

The  foetus  is  not  personally  conscious.  But 
then  what  is  personality  if  not  ideal  in  its 
origin?  The  foetus  is,  however,  radically,  in- 
dividually conscious.  From  the  active  quick, 
the  nuclear  center,  it  remains  single  and  in- 
tegral in  its  activity.  At  this  center  it  dis- 
tinguishes itself  utterly  from  the  surrounding 
universe,  whereby  both  are  modified.  From 
this  center  the  whole  individual  arises,  and 
upon  this  center  the  whole  universe,  by  impli- 
cation, impinges.  For  the  fixed  and  stable 
universe  of  law  and  matter,  even  the  whole 
cosmos,  would  wear  out  and  disintegrate  if 
it  did  not  rest  and  find  renewal  in  the 
quick  center  of  creative  life  in  individual 
creatures. 

And  since  this  center  has  absolute  location 
in  the  first  fertilized  nucleus,  it  must  have 


50     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

location  still  in  the  developed  foetus,  and  in 
the  mature  man.  And  where  is  this  location 
in  the  unborn  infant?  Beneath  the  burning 
influx  of  the  navel.  Where  is  it  in  the  adult 
man?  Still  beneath  the  navel.  As  primal 
affective  center  it  lies  within  the  solar  plexus 
of  the  nervous  system. 

We  do  not  pretend  to  use  technical  lan- 
guage. But  surely  our  meaning  is  plain  even 
to  correct  scientists,  when  we  assert  that  in  all 
mammals  the  center  of  primal,  constructive 
consciousness  and  activity  lies  in  the  middle 
front  of  the  abdomen,  beneath  the  navel,  in 
the  great  nerve  center  called  the  solar  plexus. 
How  do  we  know?  We  feel  it,  as  we  feel 
hunger  or  love  or  hate.  Once  we  know  what 
we  are,  science  can  proceed  to  analyze  our 
knowledge,  demonstrate  its  truth  or  its  un- 
truth. 

We  all  of  us  know  what  it  is  to  handle  a  new- 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  51 

born,  or  at  least  a  quite  young  infant.  We 
know  what  it  is  to  lay  the  hand  on  the  round 
little  abdomen,  the  round,  pulpy  little  head. 
We  know  where  is  life,  where  is  pulp.  We 
have  seen  blind  puppies,  blind  kittens  crawl- 
ing. They  give  strange  little  cries.  Whence 
these  cries?  Are  they  mental  exclamations? 
As  in  a  ventriloquist,  they  come  from  the 
stomach.  There  lies  the  wakeful  center. 
There  speaks  the  first  consciousness,  the  aud- 
ible unconscious,  in  the  squeak  of  these  in- 
fantile things,  which  is  so  curiously  and  inde- 
scribably moving,  reacting  direct  upon  the 
great  abdominal  center,  the  preconscious  mind 
in  man. 

There  at  the  navel,  the  first  rupture  has 
taken  place,  the  first  break  in  continuity. 
There  is  the  scar  of  dehiscence,  scar  at  once 
of  our  pain  and  splendor  of  individuality. 
Here  is  the  mark  of  our  isolation  in  the  uni- 


52      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

verse,  stigma  and  seal  of  our  free,  perfect 
singleness.  Hence  the  lotus  of  the  navel. 
Hence  the  mystic  contemplation*  of  the  navel. 
It  is  the  upper  mind  losing  itself  in  the  lower 
first-mind,  that  which  is  last  in  consciousness 
reverting  to  that  which  is  first. 

A  mother  will  realize  better  than  a  phil- 
osopher. She  knows  the  rupture  which  has 
finally  separated  her  child  into  its  own  single, 
free  existence.  She  knows  the  strange,  sensi- 
tive rose  of  the  navel:  how  it  quivers  con- 
scious; all  its  pain,  its  want  for  the  old  con- 
nection; all  its  joy  and  chuckling  exultation 
in  sheer  organic  singleness  and  individual  lib- 
erty. 

The  powerful,  active  psychic  center  in  a  new 
child  is  the  great  solar  plexus  of  the  sym- 
pathetic system.  From  this  center  the  child 
is  drawn  to  the  mother  again,  crying,  to  heal 
the  new  wound,  to  re-establish  the  old  oneness. 


THE   BIRTH   OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  53 

This  center  directs  the  little  mouth  which, 
blind  and  anticipatory,  seeks  the  breast.  How 
could  it  find  the  breast,  blind  and  mindless 
little  mouth?  But  it  needs  no  eyes  nor  mind. 
From  the  great  first-mind  of  the  abdomen  it 
moves  direct,  with  an  anterior  knowledge  al- 
most like  magnetic  propulsion,  as  if  the  little 
mouth  were  drawn  or  propelled  to  the  mater- 
nal breast  by  vital  magnetism,  whose  center  of 
directive  control  lies  in  the  solar  plexus. 

In  a  measure,  this  taking  of  the  breast  re- 
instates the  old  connection  with  the  parent 
body.  It  is  a  strange  sinking  back  to  the  old 
unison,  the  old  organic  continuum — a  recov- 
ery of  the  pre-natal  state.  But  at  the  same 
time  it  is  a  deep,  avid  gratification  in  drinking- 
in  the  sustenance  of  a  new  individuality.  It 
is  a  deep  gratification  in  the  exertion  of  a  new, 
voluntary  power.  The  child  acts  now  sepa- 
rately from  its  own  individual  center  and  ex- 


54     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

erts  still  a  control  over  the  adjacent  universe, 
the  parent  body. 

So  the  warm  life-stream  passes  again  from 
the  parent  into  the  aching  abdomen  of  the 
severed  child.  Life  cannot  progress  without 
these  ruptures,  severances,  cataclysms;  pain  is 
a  living  reality,  not  merely  a  deathly.  Why 
haven't  we  the  courage  for  life-pains?  If  we 
could  depart  from  our  old  tenets  of  the  mind, 
if  we  could  fathom  our  own  unconscious  sapi- 
ence, we  should  find  we  have  courage  and  to 
spare.  We  are  too  mentally  domesticated. 

The  great  magnetic  or  dynamic  center  of 
first-consciousness  acts  powerfully  at  the  solar 
plexus.  Here  the  child  knows  beyond  all 
knowledge.  It  does  not  see  with  the  eyes,  it 
cannot  perceive,  much  less  conceive.  Nothing 
can  it  apprehend;  the  eyes  are  a  strange  plas- 
mic,  nascent  darkness.  Yet  from  the  belly  it 
knows,  with  a  directness  of  knowledge  that 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  55 

frightens  us  and  may  even  seem  abhorrent. 
The  mother,  also,  from  the  bowels  knows  her 
child — as  she  can  never,  never  know  it  from 
the  head.  There  is  no  thought  nor  speech, 
only  direct,  ventral  gurglings  and  cooings. 
From  the  passional  nerve-center  of  the  solar 
plexus  in  the  mother  passes  direct,  unspeak- 
able effluence  and  intercommunication,  sheer 
effluent  contact  with  the  palpitating  nerve- 
center  in  the  belly  of  the  child.  Knowledge, 
unspeakable  knowledge  interchanged,  which 
must  be  diluted  by  eternities  of  materializa- 
tion before  they  can  come  to  expression. 

It  is  like  a  lovely,  suave,  fluid,  creative  elec- 
tricity that  flows  in  a  circuit  between  the  great 
nerve-centers  in  mother  and  child.  The  elec- 
tricity of  the  universe  is  a  sundering  force. 
But  this  lovely  polarized  vitalism  is  creative. 
It  passes  in  a  circuit  between  the  two  poles  of 
the  passional  unconscious  in  the  two  now  sepa- 


56     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

rated  beings.  It  establishes  in  each  that  first 
primal  consciousness  which  is  the  sacred,  all- 
containing  head-stream  of  all  our  conscious- 
ness. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  flux  between  mother 
and  child  is  not  all  sweet  unison.  There  is 
as  well  the  continually  widening  gap.  A  won- 
derful rich  communion,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  continually  increasing  cleavage.  If  only  we 
could  realize  that  all  through  life  these  are  the 
two  synchronizing  activities  of  love,  of  crea- 
tivity. For  the  end,  the  goal,  is  the  perfecting 
of  each  single  individuality,  unique  in  itself — 
which  cannot  take  place  without  a  perfected 
harmony  between  the  beloved,  a  harmony 
which  depends  on  the  at-last-clarified  single- 
ness of  each  being,  a  singleness  equilibrized, 
polarized  in  one  by  the  counter-posing  single- 
ness of  the  other. 

So  the  child.    In  its  wonderful  unison  with 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  57 

the  mother  it  is  at  the  same  time  extricating 
itself  into  single,  separate,  independent  ex- 
istence. The  one  process,  of  unison,  cannot 
go  on  without  the  other  process,  of  purified 
severance.  At  first  the  child  cleaves  back  to 
the  old  source.  It  clings  and  adheres.  The 
sympathetic  center  of  unification,  or  at  least 
unison,  alone  seems  awake.  The  child  wails 
with  the  strange  desolation  of  severance,  wails 
for  the  old  connection.  With  joy  and  peace 
it  returns  to  the  breast,  almost  as  to  the  womb. 
But  not  quite.  Even  in  sucking  it  discovers 
its  new  identity  and  power.  Its  own  new, 
separate  power.  It  draws  itself  back  sud- 
denly; it  waits.  It  has  heard  something?  No. 
But  another  center  has  flashed  awake.  The 
child  stiffens  itself  and  holds  back.  What  is 
it,  wind?  Stomach-ache?  Not  at  all.  Listen 
to  some  of  the  screams.  The  ears  can  hear 
deeper  than  eyes  can  see.  The  first  scream  of 


58     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

the  ego.  The  scream  of  asserted  isolation. 
The  scream  of  revolt  from  connection,  the  re- 
volt from  union.  There  is  a  violent  anti- 
maternal  motion,  anti-everything.  There  is  a 
refractory,  bad-tempered  negation  of  every- 
thing, a  hurricane  of  temper.  What  then? 
After  such  tremendous  unison  as  the  womb 
implies,  no  wonder  there  are  storms  of  rage 
and  separation.  The  child  is  screaming  itself 
rid  of  the  old  womb,  kicking  itself  in  a  blind 
paroxysm  into  freedom,  into  separate,  negative 
independence. 

So  be  it,  there  must  be  paroxysms,  since 
there  must  be  independence.  Then  the  mother 
gets  angry  too.  It  affects  her,  though  perhaps 
not  as  badly  as  it  affects  outsiders.  Nothing 
acts  more  direct  on  the  great  primal  nerve- 
centers  than  the  screaming  of  an  infant,  this 
blind  screaming  negation  of  connections.  It 
is  the  friction  of  irritation  itself.  Everybody  is 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  59 

implicated,  just  as  they  would  be  if  the  air 
were  surcharged  with  electricity.  The  mother 
is  perhaps  less  affected  because  she  under- 
stands primarily,  or  because  she  is  polarized 
directly  with  the  child.  Yet  she,  too,  must  be 
angry,  in  her  measure,  inevitably. 

It  is  a  blind,  almost  mechanistic  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  new  organism  to  extricate  itself 
from  cohesion  with  the  circumambient  uni- 
verse. It  applies  direct  to  the  mother.  But 
it  affects  everybody.  The  great  centers  of  re- 
sponse vibrate  with  a  maddening,  sometimes 
unbearable  friction.  What  centers?  Not  the 
great  sympathetic  plexus  this  time,  but  its  cor- 
responding voluntary  ganglion.  The'  great 
ganglion  of  the  spinal  system,  the  lumbar 
ganglion,  negatively  polarizes  the  solar  plexus 
in  the  primal  psychic  activity  of  a  human  in- 
dividual. When  a  child  screams  with  temper, 
it  sends  out  from  the  lumbar  ganglion  violent 


60     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

waves  of  frictional  repudiation,  extraordi- 
nary. The  little  back  has  an  amazing  power 
once  it  stiffens  itself.  In  the  lumbar  ganglion 
the  unconscious  now  vibrates  tremendously  in 
the  activity  of  sundering,  separation.  Mother 
and  child,  polarized,  are  primarily  affected. 
Often  the  mother  is  so  sure  of  her  possession 
of  the  child  that  she  is  almost  unmoved.  But 
the  child  continues,  till  the  frictional  response 
is  roused  in  the  mother,  her  anger  rises,  there 
is  a  flash,  an  outburst  like  lightning.  And 
then  the  storm  subsides.  The  pure  act  of  sun- 
dering is  effected.  Each  being  is  clarified  fur- 
ther into  its  own  single,  individual  self,  fur- 
ther perfected,  separated. 

Hence  a  duality,  now,  in  primal  conscious- 
ness in  the  infant.  The  warm  rosy  abdomen, 
tender  with  chuckling  unison,  and  the  little 
back  strengthening  itself.  The  child  kicks 
away,  into  independence.  It  stiffens  its  spine 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  61 

in  the  strength  of  its  own  private  and  separate, 
inviolable  existence.  It  will  admit  now  of  no 
trespass.  It  is  awake  now  in  a  new  pride,  a 
new  self-assertion.  The  sense  of  antagonistic 
freedom  is  aroused.  Clumsy  old  adhesions 
must  be  ruthlessly  fused.  And  so,  from  the 
lumbar  ganglion  the  fiery-tempered  infant  as- 
serts its  new,  blind  will. 

And  as  the  child  fights  the  mother  fights. 
Sometimes  she  fights  to  keep  her  refractory 
child,  and  sometimes  she  fights  to  kick  him  off, 
as  a  mare  kicks  off  her  too-babyish  foal.  It  is 
the  great  voluntary  center  of  the  unconscious 
flashing  into  action.  Flashing  from  the  deep 
lumbar  ganglion  in  the  mother  to  the  newly- 
awakened,  corresponding  center  in  the  child 
goes  the  swift  negative  current,  setting  each 
of  them  asunder  in  clean  individuality.  So 
long  as  the  force  meets  its  polarized  response 
all  is  well.  When  a  force  flashes  and  has  no 


62     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

response,  there  is  devastation.  How  weary  in 
the  back  is  the  nursing  mother  whose  great 
center  of  repudiation  is  suppressed  or  weak; 
how  a  child  droops  if  only  the  sympathetic 
unison  is  established. 

So,  the  polarity  of  the  dynamic  conscious- 
ness, from  the  very  start  of  life!  Direct  flow- 
ing and  flashing  of  two  consciousness-streams, 
active  in  the  bringing  forth  of  an  individual 
being.  The  sweet  commingling,  the  sharp 
clash  of  opposition.  And  no  possibility  of 
creative  development  without  this  polarity, 
this  dual  circuit  of  direct,  spontaneous,  honest 
interchange.  No  hope  of  life  apart  from  this. 
The  primal  unconscious  pulsing  in  its  circuits 
between  two  beings :  love  and  wrath,  cleaving 
and  repulsion,  inglutination  and  excrementa- 
tion.  What  is  the  good  of  inventing  "ideal" 
behavior?  How  order  the  path  of  the  uncon- 
scious? For  let  us  now  realize  that  we  cannot, 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  63 

even  with  the  best  intentions,  proceed  to  order 
the  path  of  our  own  unconscious  without 
vitally  deranging  the  life-flow  of  those  con- 
nected with  us.  If  you  disturb  the  current  at 
one  pole,  it  must  be  disturbed  at  the  other. 
Here  is  a  new  moral  aspect  to  life. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  CHILD  AND  HIS  MOTHER 

IN  ASSERTING  that  the  seat  of  consciousness 
in  a  young  infant  is  in  the  abdomen,  we  do 
not  pretend  to  suggest  that  all  the  other  con- 
scious-centers are  utterly  dormant.  Once  a 
child  is  born,  the  whole  nervous  and  cerebral 
system  comes  awake,  even  the  brain's  memo- 
ries begin  to  glimmer,  recognition  and  cogni- 
tion soon  begin  to  take  place.  But  the  spon- 
taneous control  and  all  the  prime  developing 
activity  derive  from  the  great  affective  centers 
of  the  abdomen.  In  the  solar  plexus  is  the 
first  great  fountain  and  issue  of  infantile  con- 
sciousness. There,  beneath  the  navel,  lies  the 
active  human  first-mind,  the  prime  uncon- 
scious. From  the  moment  of  conception,  when 


THE  CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  65 

the  first  nucleus  is  formed,  to  the  moment  of 
death,  when  this  same  nucleus  breaks  again, 
the  first  great  active  center  of  human  con- 
sciousness lies  in  the  solar  plexus. 

The  movement  of  development  in  any  crea- 
ture is,  however,  towards  a  florescent  indi- 
viduality. The  ample,  mature,  unfolded  indi- 
vidual stands  perfect,  perfect  in  himself,  but 
also  perfect  in  his  harmonious  relation  to  those 
nearest  him  and  to  all  the  universe.  Whilst 
only  the  one  great  center  of  consciousness  is 
awake,  in  the  abdomen,  the  infant  has  no  sepa- 
rate existence,  his  whole  nature  is  contained 
in  the  conjunction  with  the  parent.  As  soon 
as  the  complementary  negative  pole  arouses 
the  voluntary  center  of  the  lumbar  ganglion, 
there  is  at  once  a  retraction  into  independence 
and  an  assertion  of  singleness.  The  back 
strengthens  itself. 

But  still  the  circuit  of  polarity,  dual  as  it 


66     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

is,  positive  and  negative  from  the  positive- 
sympathetic  and  the  negative-voluntary  poles, 
still  depends  on  the  duality  of  two  beings — it 
is  still  extra-individual.  Each  individual  is 
vitally  dependent  on  the  other,  for  the  life 
circuit. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  kind  of 
consciousness  manifested  at  the  two  great  pri- 
mary centers.  At  the  solar  plexus  the  new 
psyche  acts  in  a  mode  of  attractive  vitalism, 
drawing  its  objective  unto  itself  as  by  vital 
magnetism.  Here  it  drinks  in,  as  it  were,  the 
contiguous  universe,  as  during  the  womb- 
period  it  drank  from  the  living  continuum  of 
the  mother.  It  is  darkly  self-centered,  ex- 
ultant and  positive  in  its  own  existence.  It  is 
all-in-all  to  itself,  its  own  great  subject.  It 
knows  no  objective.  It  only  knows  its  own 
vital  potency,  which  potency  draws  the  ex- 
ternal object  unto  itself,  subjectively,  as  the 


THE  CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  67 

blood-stream  was  drawn  into  the  foetus,  by 
subjective  attraction.  Here  the  psyche  is  to 
itself  the  All.  Blindly  self-positive. 

This  is  the  first  mode  of  consciousness  for 
every  living  thing— fascinating  in  all  young 
things.  The  second  half  of  the  same  mode 
commences  as  soon  as  direct  activity  sets  up 
in  the  lumbar  ganglion.  Then  the  psyche  re- 
coils upon  itself,  in  its  first  reaction  against 
continuity  with  the  outer  universe.  It  recoils 
even  against  its  own  mode  of  assimilatory  uni- 
son. Even  it  must  break  off,  interrupt  the 
great  psychic-assimilation  process  which  goes 
on  at  the  sympathic  center.  It  must  recoil 
clean  upon  itself,  break  loose  f rom.any  attach- 
ment whatsoever.  And  then  it  must  try  its 
power,  often  playfully. 

This  reaction  is  still  subjective.  When  a 
child  stiffens  and  draws  away,  when  it  screams 
with  pure  temper,  it  takes  no  note  of  that 


68      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

from  which  it  recoils.  It  has  no  objective 
consciousness  of  that  from  which  it  reacts,  the 
mother  principally.  It  is  like  a  swimmer  end- 
lessly kicking  the  water  away  behind  him, 
with  strong  legs  vividly  active  from  the  spinal 
ganglia.  Like  a  man  in  a  boat  pushing  off 
from  the  shore,  it  merely  thrusts  away,  in 
order  to  ride  free,  ever  more  free.  It  is  a 
purely  subjective  motion,  in  the  negative  di- 
rection. 

After  our  long  training  in  objectivation, 
and  our  epoch  of  worship  of  the  objective 
mode,  it  is  perhaps  difficult  for  us  to  realize 
the  strong,  blind  power  of  the  unconscious  on 
its  first  plane  of  activity.  It  is  something  quite 
different  from  what  we  call  egoism — which  is 
really  mentally  derived — for  the  ego  is  merely 
the  sum-total  of  what  we  conceive  ourselves 
to  be.  The  powerful  pristine  subjectivity  of 
the  unconscious  on  its  first  plane  is,  on  the 


THE   CHILD   AND   HIS   MOTHER  69 

other  hand,  the  root  of  all  our  consciousness 
and  being,  darkly  tenacious.  Here  we  are 
grounded,  say  what  we  may.  And  if  we  break 
the  spell  of  this  first  subjective  mode,  we  break 
our  own  main  root  and  live  rootless,  shiftless, 
groundless. 

So  that  the  powerful  subjectivity  of  the  un- 
conscious, where  the  self  is  all-in-all  unto  it- 
self, active  in  strong  desirous  psychic  assimila- 
tion or  in  direct  repudiation  of  the  contiguous 
universe;  this  first  plane  of  psychic  activity, 
polarized  in  the  solar  plexus  and  the  lumbar 
ganglion  of  each  individual  but  established  in 
a  circuit  with  the  corresponding  poles  of  an- 
other individual:  this  is  the  first  scope  of  life 
and  being  for  every  human  individual,  and  is 
beyond  question.  But  we  must  again  remark 
that  the  whole  circuit  is  established  between 
two  individuals — that  neither  is  a  free  thing- 
unto-itself — and  that  the  very  fact  of  estab- 


70     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

lished  polarity  between  the  two  maintains  that 
correspondence  between  the  individual  entity 
and  the  external  universe  which  is  the  clue  to 
all  growth  and  development.  The  pure  sub- 
jectivity of  the  first  plane  of  consciousness  is 
no  more  selfish  than  the  pure  objectivity  of 
any  other  plane.  How  can  it  be?  How  can 
any  form  of  pure,  balanced  polarity  between 
two  vital  individuals  be  in  any  sense  selfish  on 
the  part  of  one  individual?  We  have  got  our 
moral  values  all  wrong. 

Save  for  healthy  instinct,  the  moralistic  hu- 
man race  would  have  exterminated  itself  long 
ago.  And  yet  man  must  be  moral,  at  the  very 
root  moral.  The  essence  of  morality  is  the 
basic  desire  to  preserve  the  perfect  correspond- 
ence between  the  self  and  the  object,  to  have 
no  trespass  and  no  breach  of  integrity,  nor  yet 
any  refaulture  in  the  vitalistic  interchange. 

As  yet  we  see  the  unconscious  active  on  one 


THE   CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  71 

plane  only  and  entirely  dependent  on  two  in- 
dividuals. But  immediately  following  the 
establishment  of  the  circuit  of  the  powerful, 
subjective,  abdominal  plane  comes  the  quiver- 
ing of  the  whole  system  into  a  new  degree  of 
consciousness.  And  two  great  upper  centers 
are  awake. 

The  diaphragm  really  divides  the  human 
body,  psychically  as  well  as  organically.  The 
two  centers  beneath  the  diaphragm  are  centers 
of  dark  subjectivity,  centripetal,  assimilative. 
Once  these  are  established,  in  the  thorax  the 
two  first  centers  of  objective  consciousness  be- 
come active,  with  ever-increasing  intensity. 
The  great  thoracic  sympathetic  plexus  rouses 
like  a  sun  in  the  breast,  the  thoracic  ganglion 
fills  the  shoulders  with  strength.  There  are 
now  two  planes  of  primary  consciousness — the 
first,  the  lower,  the  subjective  unconscious,  ac- 
tive beneath  the  diaphragm,  and  the  second 


72      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

upper,  objective  plane,  active  above  the  dia- 
phragm, in  the  breast. 

Let  us  realize  that  the  subjective  ana  ob- 
jective of  the  unconscious  are  not  the  same  as 
the  subjective  and  the  objective  of  the  mind. 

Here  we  have  no  concepts  to  deal  with,  no 

« 

static  objects  in  the  shape  of  ideas.  We  have 
none  of  that  tiresome  business  of  establishing 
the  relation  between  the  mind  and  its  own 
ideal  object,  or  the  discriminating  between 
the  ideal  thing-in-itself  and  the  mind  of  which 
it  is  the  content.  We  are  spared  that  hateful 
thing-in-itself,  the  idea,  which  is  at  once  so 
all-important  and  so  nothing.  We  are  on 
straightforward  solid  ground;  there  is  no  ab- 
straction. 

The  unconscious  subjectivity  is,  in  its  posi- 
tive manifestation,  a  great  imbibing,  and  in  its 
negative,  a  definite  blind  rejection.  What  we 
call  an  unconscious  rejection.  This  subjec- 


THE   CHILD   AND    HIS   MOTHER  73 

tivity  embraces  alike  creative  emotion  and 
physical  function.  It  includes  alike  the  sweet 
and  untellable  communion  of  love  between  the 
mother  and  child,  the  irrational  reaction  into 
separation  between  the  two,  and  also  the  phys- 
ical functioning  of  sucking  and  urination. 
Psychic  and  physical  development  run  par- 
allel, though  they  are  forever  distinct.  The 
child  sucking,  the  child  urinating,  this  is  the 
child  acting  from  the  great  subjective  centers, 
positive  and  negative.  When  the  child  sucks, 
there  is  a  sympathetic  circuit  between  it  and 
the  mother,  in  which  the  sympathetic  plexus 
in  the  mother  acts  as  negative  or  submissive 
pole  to  the  corresponding  plexus  in  the  child. 
In  urination  there  is  a  corresponding  circuit 
in  the  voluntary  centers,  so  that  a  mother  seems 
gratified,  and  is  gratified,  inevitably,  by  the 
excremental  functioning  of  her  child.  She 
experiences  a  true  polar  reaction. 


74     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

Child  and  mother  have,  in  the  first  place,  no 
objective  consciousness  of  each  other,  and  cer- 
tainly no  idea  of  each  other.  Each  is  a  blind 
desideratum  to  the  other.  The  strong  love 
between  them  is  effectual  in  the  great  ab- 
dominal centers,  where  all  love,  real  love,  is 
primarily  based.  Of  that  reflected  or  moon- 
love,  derived  from  the  head,  that  spurious 
form  of  love  which  predominates  to-day,  we 
do  not  speak  here.  It  has  its  root  in  the  idea: 
the  beloved  is  a  mental  objective,  endlessly  ap- 
preciated, criticized,  scrutinized,  exhausted. 
This  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  active  uncon- 
scious. 

Having  realized  that  the  unconscious 
sparkles,  vibrates,  travels  in  a  strong  subjec- 
tive stream  from  the  abdominal  centers,  con- 
necting the  child  directly  with  the  mother  at 
corresponding  poles  of  vitalism,  we  realize 
that  the  unconscious  contains  nothing  ideal, 


THE   CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  75 

nothing  in  the  least  conceptual,  and  hence 
nothing  in  the  least  personal,  since  personality, 
like  the  ego,  belongs  to  the  conscious  or  men- 
tal-subjective self.  So  the  first  analyses  are, 
or  should  be,  so  impersonal  that  the  so-called 
human  relations  are  not  involved.  The  first 
relationship  is  neither  personal  nor  biological 
— a  fact  which  psychoanalysis  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  grasping. 

For  example.  A  child  screams  with  terror 
at  the  touch  of  fur;  another  child  loves  the 
touch  of  fur,  and  purrs  with  pleasure.  How 
now?  Is  it  a  complex?  Did  the  father  have 
a  beard? 

It  is  possible.  But  all-too-human.  The 
physical  result  of  rubbing  fur  is  to  set  up  a 
certain  amount  of  f  rictional  electricity.  Fric- 
tional  electricity  is  one  of  the  sundering 
forces.  It  corresponds  to  the  voluntary  forces 
exerted  at  the  lower  spinal  ganglia,  the  forces 


76     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

of  anger  and  retraction  into  independence  and 
power.  An  over-sympathetic  child  will 
scream  with  fear  at  the  touch  of  fur;  a  re- 
fractory child  will  purr  with  pleasure.  It  is 
a  reaction  which  involves  even  deeper  things 
than  sex — the  primal  constitution  of  the  ele- 
mentary psyche.  A  sympathetically  overbal- 
anced child  has  a  horror  of  the  electric-fric- 
tional  force  such  as  is  emitted  from  the  fur  of 
a  black  cat,  creature  of  rapacity.  The  same 
delights  a  fierce-willed  child. 

But  we  must  admit  at  the  same  time  that 
from  earliest  days  a  child  is  subject  to  the 
definite  conscious  psychic  influences  of  its  sur- 
roundings and  will  react  almost  automatically 
to  a  conscious-passional  suggestion  from  the 
mother.  In  this  way  personal  sex  is  prema- 
turely evoked,  and  real  complexes  are  set  up. 
But  these  derive  not  from  the  spontaneous  un- 
conscious. They  are  in  a  way  dictated  from 


THE  CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  77 

the  deliberate,  mental  consciousness,  even  if 
involuntarily.  Again  they  are  a  result  of 
mental  subjectivity,  self-consciousness — so  dif- 
ferent from  the  primal  subjectivity  of  the  un- 
conscious. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  pure  uncon- 
scious. When  the  upper  centers  flash  awake, 
a  whole  new  field  of  consciousness  and  spon- 
taneous activity  is  opened  out.  The  great 
sympathetic  plexus  of  the  breast  is  the  heart's 
mind.  This  thoracic  plexus  corresponds  di- 
rectly in  the  upper  man  to  the  solar  plexus 
in  the  lower.  But  it  is  a  correspondence  in 
creative  opposition.  From  the  sympathetic 
center  of  the  breast  as  from  a  window  the  un- 
conscious goes  forth  seeking  its  object,  to  dwell 
upon  it.  When  a  child  leans  its  breast  against 
its  mother  it  becomes  filled  with  a  primal 
awareness  of  her — not  of  itself  desiring  her  or 
partaking  of  her — but  of  her  as  she  is  in  her- 


78     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

self.  This  is  the  first  great  acquisition  of 
primal  objective  knowledge,  the  objective  con- 
tent of  the  unconscious.  Such  knowledge  we 
call  the  treasure  of  the  heart.  When  the  an- 
cients located  the  first  seat  of  consciousness 
in  the  heart,  they  were  neither  misguided  nor 
playing  with  metaphor.  For  by  consciousness 
they  meant,  as  usual,  objective  consciousness 
only.  And  from  the  cardiac  plexus  goes  forth 
that  strange  effluence  of  the  self  which  seeks 
and  dwells  upon  the  beloved,  lovingly  roving 
like  the  fingers  of  an  infant  or  a  blind  man 
over  the  face  of  the  treasured  object,  gathering 
her  mould  into  itself  and  transferring  her 
mould  forever  into  its  own  deep  unconscious 
psyche.  This  is  the  first  acquiring  of  objective 
knowledge,  sightless,  unspeakably  direct.  It 
is  a  dwelling  of  the  child's  unconscious  within 
the  form  of  the  mother,  the  gathering  of  a 
pure,  eternal  impression.  So  the  soul  stores 


THE  CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  79 

itself  with  dynamic  treasures;  it  verily  builds 
its  own  tissue  of  such  treasure,  the  tissue  of  the 
developing  body,  each  cell  stored  with  crea- 
tive dynamic  content. 

The  breasts  themselves  are  as  two  eyes.  We 
do  not  know  how  much  the  nipples  of  the 
breast,  both  in  man  and  woman,  serve  pri- 
marily as  poles  of  vital  conscious  effluence  and 
connection.  We  do  not  know  how  the  nipples 
of  the  breast  are  as  fountains  leaping  into  the 
universe,  or  as  little  lamps  irradiating  the  con- 
tiguous world,  to  the  soul  in  quest. 

But  certainly  from  the  passional  conscious- 
center  of  the  breast  goes  forth  the  first  joyous 
discovery  of  the  beloved,  the  first  objective 
discovery  of  the  contiguous  universe,  the  first 
ministration  of  the  self  to  that  which  is  beyond 
the  self.  So,  functionally,  the  mother  min- 
isters with  the  milk  of  her  breast.  But  this  is 
a  yielding  to  the  great  lower  plexus,  the  basic 


8o     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

solar  plexus.  It  is  the  breast  as  part  also  of 
the  alimentary  system — a  special  thing. 

In  sucking  the  hands  also  come  awake.  It 
is  strange  to  notice  the  pictures  by  the  old 
masters  of  the  Madonna  and  Child.  Some- 
times the  strange  round  belly  of  the  Infant 
seems  the  predominant  mystery-center,  and 
sometimes  from  the  tiny  breast  it  is  as  if  a  deli- 
cate light  glowed,  the  light  of  love.  As  if  the 
breast  should  illumine  the  outer  world  in  its 
seeking  administering  love.  As  if  the  breast 
of  the  Infant  glimmered  its  light  of  discovery 
on  the  adoring  Mother,  and  she  bowed,  sub- 
missive to  the  revelation. 

The  little  hands  and  arms  wave,  circulate, 
trying  to  touch,  to  grasp,  to  know.  To  grasp 
in  caress,  not  to  reive.  To  grasp  in  order  to 
identify  themselves  with  the  cherished  discov- 
ery, to  realize  the  beloved.  To  cherish,  to 
realize  the  beloved.  To  administer  the  out- 


THE  CHILD  AND   HIS   MOTHER  8 1 

ward-seeking  self  to  the  beloved.  We  give 
this  the  exclusive  name  of  love.  But  it  is  in- 
deed only  the  one  direction  of  love,  the  out- 
going from  the  lovely  center  of  the  breast — 
the  nipple?  seeking,  the  hands  delicately, 
caressively  exploring,  the  eyes  at  last  waking 
to  perception.  The  eyes,  the  hands,  these  wake 
and  are  alert  from  the  center  of  the  breast. 
But  the  ears  and  feet  move  from  the  deep 
lower  centers — the  recipient  ears,  imbibing  vi- 
brations, the  feet  which  press  the  resistant 
earth,  controlled  from  the  powerful  lower 
ganglia  of  the  spine.  And  thus  great  scope 
of  activity  opens,  in  the  hands  that  wave  and 
explore,  the  eyes  that  try  to  perceive,  the  legs, 
the  little  knees  that  thrust,  thrust  away,  the 
small  feet  that  curl  and  twinkle  upon  them- 
selves, ready  for  the  obstinate  earth. 

And  so,  also  a  wholeness  is  established  with- 
in the  individual.    The  two  fields  of  conscious- 


82     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

ness,  the  first  upper  and  the  first  lower,  are 
based  upon  a  correspondence  of  polarity.  The 
first  great  complex  circuit  is  now  set  up  within 
the  individual,  between  the  upper  and  lower 
centers.  The  individual  consciousness  has 
now  its  own  integral  independent  existence 
and  activity,  apart  from  external  connection. 
It  has  its  right  to  be  alone. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  LOVER  AND  THE  BELOVED 

CONSCIOUSNESS  develops  on  successive 
planes.  On  each  plane  there  is  the  dual 
polarity,  positive  and  negative,  of  the  sym- 
pathetic and  voluntary  nerve  centers.  The 
first  plane  is  established  between  the  poles  of 
the  sympathetic  solar  plexus  and  the  volun- 
tary lumbar  ganglion.  This  is  the  active  first 
plane  of  the  subjective  unconscious,  from 
which  the  whole  of  consciousness  arises. 

Immediately  succeeding  the  first  plane  of 
subjective  dynamic  consciousness  arises  the 
corresponding  first  plane  of  objective  con- 
sciousness, the  objective  unconscious,  polarized 
in  the  cardiac  plexus  and  the  thoracic  gan- 
glion, in  the  breast.  There  is  a  perfect  cor- 

83 


84     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

respondence  in  difference  between  the  first 
abdominal  and  the  first  thoracic  planes.  These 
two  planes  polarize  each  other  in  a  fourfold 
polarity,  which  makes  the  first  great  field  of 
individual,  self-dependent  consciousness. 

Each  pole  of  the  active  unconscious  mani- 
fests a  specific  activity  and  gives  rise  to  a 
specific  kind  of  dynamic  or  creative  conscious- 
ness. On  each  plane,  the  negative  voluntary 
pole  complements  the  positive  sympathetic 
pole,  and  yet  the  consciousness  originating 
from  the  complementary  poles  is  not  merely 
negative  versus  positive,  it  is  categorically  dif- 
ferent, opposite.  Each  is  pure  and  perfect  in 
itself. 

But  the  moment  we  enter  the  two  planes  of 
corresponding  consciousness,  lower  and  upper, 
we  find  a  whole  new  range  of  complements. 
The  upper,  dynamic-objective  plane  is  com- 
plementary to  the  lower,  dynamic-subjective. 


THE   LOVER   AND  THE   BELOVED  85 

The  mystery  of  creative  opposition  exists  all 
the  time  between  the  two  planes,  and  this  uni- 
son in  opposition  between  the  two  planes 
forms  the  first  whole  field  of  consciousness. 
Within  the  individual  the  polarity  is  fourfold. 
In  a  relation  between  two  individuals  the  po- 
larity is  already  eightfold. 

Now  before  we  can  have  any  sort  of  scien- 
tific, comprehensive  psychology  we  shall  have 
to  establish  the  nature  of  the  consciousness  at 
each  of  the  dynamic  poles — the  nature  of  the 
consciousness,  the  direction  of  the  dynamic- 
vital  flow,  the  resultant  physical-organic  de- 
velopment and  activity.  This  we  must  do 
before  we  can  even  begin  to  consider  a  genuine 
system  of  education.  Education  now  is  widely 
at  sea.  Having  ceased  to  steer  by  the  pole-star 
of  the  mind,  having  ceased  to  aim  at  the  cram- 
ming of  the  intellect,  it  veers  hither  and  thither 
hopelessly  and  absurdly.  Education  can  never 


86     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

become  a  serious  science  until  the  human 
psyche  is  properly  understood.  And  the  hu- 
man psyche  cannot  begin  to  be  understood  un- 
til we  enter  the  dark  continent  of  the  uncon- 
scious. Having  begun  to  explore  the  uncon- 
scious, we  find  we  must  go  from  center  to 
center,  chakra  to  chakra,  to  use  an  old  esoteric 
word.  We  must  patiently  determine  the 
psychic  manifestation  at  each  center,  and 
moreover,  as  we  go,  we  must  discover  the 
psychic  results  of  the  interaction,  the  polarized 
interaction  between  the  dynamic  centers  both 
within  and  without  the  individual. 

Here  is  a  real  job  for  the  scientist,  a  job 
which  eternity  will  never  see  finished  though 
even  to-morrow  may  see  it  well  begun.  It  is  a 
job  which  will  at  last  free  us  from  the  most 
hateful  of  all  shackles,  the  shackles  of  ideas 
and  ideals.  It  is  a  great  task  of  the  liberators, 
those  who  work  forever  for  the  liberation  of 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  87 

the  free  spontaneous  psyche,  the  effective  soul. 

In  these  few  chapters  we  hope  to  hint  at  the 
establishment  of  the  first  field  of  the  uncon- 
scious— at  the  nature  of  the  consciousness 
manifested  at  each  pole — and  at  the  already 
complex  range  of  dynamic  polarity  between 
the  various  poles.  So  far  we  have  given  the 
merest  suggestion  of  the  nature  of  the  first 
plane  of  the  unconscious  and  have  attempted 
the  opening  of  the  second  or  upper  plane.  We 
profess  no  scientific  exactitude,  particularly  in 
terminology.  We  merely  wish  intelligibly  to 
open  a  way. 

To  balance  the  solar  plexus  wakes  the  great 
plexus  of  the  breast.  In  our  era  this  plexus 
is  the  great  planet  of  our  psychic  universe.  In 
the  previous  sympathetic  era  the  flower  of  the 
universal  blossomed  in  the  navel.  But  since 
Egypt  the  sun  of  creative  activity  beams  from 
the  breast,  the  heart  of  the  supreme  Man.  This 


88      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

is  to  us  the  source  of  light— the  loving  heart, 
the  Sacred  Heart.  Against  this  we  contrast 
the  devouring  darkness  of  the  lower  man,  the 
devouring  whirlpool  beneath  the  navel.  Even 
theosophists  don't  realize  that  the  universal 
lotus  really  blossoms  in  the  abdomen — that  our 
lower  man,  our  dark,  devouring  whirlpool, 
was  once  the  creative  source,  in  human  esti- 
mation. 

But  in  calling  the  heart  the  sun,  the  source 
of  light,  we  are  biologically  correct  even. 
For  the  roots  of  vision  are  in  the  cardiac 
plexus.  But  if  we  were  to  consider  the  heart 
itself,  not  its  great  nerve  plexus,  we  should 
have  to  go  further  than  the  nervous  system. 
If  we  had  to  consider  the  whole  lambent 
blood-stream,  we  should  have  to  descend  too 
deep  for  our  unpractised  minds.  Suffice  it 
here  to  hint  that  the  solar  plexus  is  the  first 
and  main  clue  to  the  great  alimentary-sexual 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  89 

activity  in  man,  an  activity  at  once  functional 
and  creatively  emotional,  whilst  the  cardiac 
plexus  is  first  and  main  clue  to  the  respiratory 
system  and  the  active-productive  manifesta- 
tions. The  mouth  and  nostrils  are  gates  to 
each  great  center,  upper  and  lower — even  the 
breasts  have  this  duality.  Yet  the  clue  to  res- 
piration and  hand  activity  and  vision  is  in  the 
breast,  while  the  clue  to  alimentation  and  pas- 
sion and  sex  is  in  the  lower  centers.  The 
duality  goes  so  far  and  is  so  profound.  And 
the  polarity!  The  great  organs,  as  well  as  the 
lymphatic  glands,  depend  each  on  its  own 
specific  center  of  the  unconscious;  each  is  de- 
rived from  a  specific  dynamic  conscious-clue, 
what  we  might  almost  call  a  soul-cell.  The 
inherent  unconscious,  or  soul,  is  the  first  nu- 
cleus subdivided,  and  from  its  own  subdi- 
visions produced,  from  its  own  still-creative 
constellated  nuclei,  the  organs,  glands,  nerve- 


90     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

centers  of  the  human  organism.  This  is  our 
answer  to  materialism  and  idealism  alike. 
The  nuclear  unconscious  brought  forth  organs 
and  consciousness  alike.  And  the  great  nuclei 
of  the  unconscious  still  lie  active  in  the  great 
living  nerve-centers,  which  nerve  centers,  from 
the  original  solar-plexus  to  the  conclusive 
brain,  form  one  great  chain  of  dual  polarity 
and  amplified  consciousness. 

All  this  is  a  mere  incoherent  stammering, 
broken  first-words.  To  return  to  the  direct 
path  of  our  progress.  It  is  not  merely  a  meta- 
phor, to  call  the  cardiac  plexus  the  sun,  the 
Light.  It  is  metaphor  in  the  first  place,  be- 
cause the  conscious  effluence  which  proceeds 
from  this  first  upper  center  in  the  breast  goes 
forth  and  plays  upon  its  external  object,  as 
phosphorescent  waves  might  break  upon  a 
ship  and  reveal  its  form.  The  transferring  of 
the  objective  knowledge  to  the  psyche  is  al- 


THE   LOVER   AND  THE   BELOVED  91 

most  the  same  as  vision.  It  is  root-vision.  It 
happens  before  the  eyes  open.  It  is  the  first 
tremendous  mode  of  apprehension,  still  dark, 
but  moving  towards  light.  It  is  the  eye  in  the 
breast.  Psychically,  it  is  basic  objective  ap- 
prehension. Dynamically,  it  is  love,  devo- 
tional, administering  love. 

Now  we  make  already  a  discrimination  be- 
tween the  two  natures,  even  of  this  first  upper 
consciousness.  First  from  the  breast  flows  the 
devotional,  self-outpouring  of  love,  love  which 
gives  its  all  to  the  beloved.  And  back  again 
returns  to  the  ingathered  objective  conscious- 
ness, the  first  objective  content  of  the  psyche. 

This  argues  the  dual  polarity.  From  the 
positive  pole  of  the  cardiac  plexus  flows  out 
that  effluence  which  we  call  selfless  love.  It 
is  really  self-devoting  love,  not  self-less.  This 
is  the  one  form  of  love  we  recognize.  But 
from  the  strong  ganglion  of  the  shoulders  pro- 


92     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

ceeds  the  negative  circuit,  which  searches  and 
explores  the  beloved,  bringing  back  pure  ob- 
jective apprehension,  not  critical,  in  the  men- 
tal sense,  and  yet  passionally  discriminative. 

Let  us  discriminate  between  the  two  upper 
poles.  From  the  sympathetic  heart  goes  forth 
pure  administering,  like  sunbeams.  But  from 
the  strong  thoracic  center  of  the  shoulders  is 
exerted  a  strong  rejective  force,  a  force  which, 
pressing  upon  the  object  of  attention,  in  the 
mode  of  separation,  succeeds  in  transferring 
to  itself  the  impression  of  the  object  to  which 
it  has  attended.  This  is  the  other  half  of  de- 
votional love — perfect  knowledge  of  the  be- 
loved. 

Now  this  knowledge  in  itself  argues  a  con- 
tradistinction between  the  lover  and  the  be- 
loved. It  is  the  very  mould  of  the  contra- 
distinction. It  is  the  impress  upon  the  lover 
of  that  which  was  separate  from  him,  resistant 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  93 

to  him,  in  the  beloved.  Objective  knowledge 
is  always  of  this  kind — a  knowledge  based  on 
unchangeable  difference,  a  knowledge  truly  of 
the  gulf  that  lies  between  the  two  beings  near- 
est to  each  other. 

In  two  kinds,  then,  consists  the  activity  of 
the  unconscious  on  the  first  upper  plane. 
Primal  is  the  blissful  sense  of  ineffable  trans- 
fusion with  the  beloved,  which  we  call  love, 
and  of  which  our  era  has  perhaps  enjoyed  the 
full.  It  is  a  mode  of  creative  consciousness 
essentially  objective,  but  yet  it  preserves  no 
object  in  the  memory,  even  the  dynamic  mem- 
ory. It  is  a  great  objective  flux,  a  streaming 
forth  of  the  self  in  blissful  departure,  like  sun- 
beams streaming. 

If  this  activity  alone  worked,  then  the  self 
would  utterly  depart  from  its  own  integrity; 
it  would  pass  out  and  merge  with  the  beloved 
— which  passing  out  and  merging  is  the  goal 


94     PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

of  enthusiasts.  But  living  beings  are  kept  in- 
tegral by  the  activity  of  the  great  negative 
pole.  From  the  thoracic  ganglion  also  the 
unconscious  goes  forth  in  its  quest  of  the  be- 
loved. But  what  does  it  go  to  seek?  Real  ob- 
jective knowledge.  It  goes  to  find  out  the 
wonders  which  itself  does  not  contain  and  to 
transfer  these  wonders,  as  by  impress,  into  it- 
self. It  goes  out  to  determine  the  limits  of 
its  own  existence  also. 

This  is  the  second  half  of  the  activity  of 
upper  or  self-less  or  spiritual  love.  There  is 
a  tremendous  great  joy  in  exploring  and  dis- 
covering the  beloved.  For  what  is  the  be- 
loved? She  is  that  which  I  myself  am  not. 
Knowing  the  breach  between  us,  the  unclose- 
able  gulf,  I  in  the  same  breath  realize  her 
features.  In  the  first  mode  of  the  upper  con- 
sciousness there  is  perfect  surpassing  of  all 
sense  of  division  between  the  self  and  the  be- 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  95 

loved.  In  the  second  mode  the  very  discovery 
of  the  features  of  the  beloved  contains  the  full 
realization  of  the  irreparable,  or  unsurpass- 
able, gulf.  This  is  objective  knowledge,  as 
distinct  from  objective  emotion.  It  contains 
always  the  element  of  self-amplification,  as  if 
the  self  were  amplified  by  knowledge  in  the 
beloved.  It  should  also  contain  the  knowledge 
of  the  limits  of  the  self. 

So  it  is  with  the  Infant.  Curious  indeed 
is  the  look  on  the  face  of  the  Holy  Child,  in 
Leonardo's  pictures,  in  Botticelli's,  even  in  the 
beautiful  Filippo  Lippi.  It  is  the  Mother 
who  crosses  her  hands  on  her  breast,  in  su- 
preme acquiescence,  recipient;  it  is  the  Child 
who  gazes,  with  a  kind  of  objective,  strangely 
discerning,  deep  apprehension  of  her,  startling 
to  northern  eyes.  It  is  a  gaze  by  no  means  of 
innocence,  but  of  profound,  pre-visual  dis- 
cerning. So  plainly  is  the  child  looking  across 


96      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

the  gulf  and  fixing  the  gulf  by  very  intentness 
of  pre-visual  apprehension,  that  instinctively 
the  ordinary  northerner  finds  Him  anti- 
pathetic. It  seems  almost  a  cruel  objectivity. 

Perhaps  between  lovers,  in  the  objective 
way  of  love,  either  the  voluntary  separative 
mode  predominates,  or  the  sympathetic  mode 
of  communion — one  or  the  other.  In  the 
north  we  have  worshipped  the  latter  mode. 
But  in  the  south  it  is  different;  the  objective 
sapient  manner  of  love  seems  more  natural. 
Moreover  in  the  face  of  the  Infant  lingers 
nearly  always  the  dark  look  of  the  pristine 
mode  of  consciousness,  the  powerful  self-cen- 
tering subjective  mode,  established  in  the 
lower  body — the  so-called  sensual  mode. 

But  take  our  own  children.  A  small  infant, 
as  soon  as  it  really  begins  to  direct  its  attention. 
How  often  it  seems  to  be  gazing  across  a 
strange  distance  at  the  mother;  what  a  curious 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  97 

look  is  on  its  face,  as  if  the  mother  were  an 
object  set  across  a  far  gulf,  distinct  however, 
discernible,  even  obtrusive  in  her  need  to  be 
apprehended.  A  mother  will  chase  away  this 
look  with  kisses.  But  she  cannot  chase  away 
the  inevitable  effluence  of  separatist,  objective* 
apprehension.  She  herself  sometimes  will  fall 
into  a  half-trance,  and  the  child  on  her  lap 
will  resolve  itself  into  a  strange  and  separate 
object.  She  does  not  criticize  or  analyze  him. 
She  does  not  even  perceive  him.  But  as  if 
rapt,  she  apprehends  him  lying  there,  an  un- 
fathomable and  inscrutable  objective,  outside 
herself,  never  to  be  grasped  or  included  in  her- 
self. She  seizes  as  it  were  a  sudden  and  final, 
objective  impression  of  him.  And  the  conclu- 
sive sensation  is  one  of  finality.  Something 
final  has  happened  to  her.  She  has  the  strange 
sensation  of  unalterable  certainty,  a  sensation 
at  once  profoundly  gratifying  and  rather  ap- 


98      PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

palling.  She  possesses  something,  a  certain 
entity  of  primal,  pre-conscious  knowledge. 
Let  the  child  be  what  he  may,  her  knowledge 
of  him  is  her  own,  forever  and  final.  It  gives 
her  a  sense  of  wealth  in  possession,  and  of 
power.  It  gives  her  a  sense  also  of  fatality. 
From  the  very  satisfaction  of  the  objective 
finality  derives  the  sense  of  fatality.  It  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  other  being,  but  a  knowl- 
edge which  contains  at  the  same  time  a  final 
assurance  of  the  eternal  and  insuperable  gulf 
which  lies  between  beings — the  isolation  of  the 
self  first. 

Thus  the  first  plane  of  the  upper  conscious- 
ness— the  outgoing,  the  sheer  and  unspeakable 
bliss  of  the  sense  of  union,  communion,  at-one- 
ness  with  the  beloved — and  then  the  comple- 
mentary objective  realization  of  the  beloved, 
the  realization  of  that  which  is  apart,  differ- 
ent. This  realization  is  like  riches  to  the  ob- 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED  99 

jective  consciousness.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the 
adding  of  another  self  to  the  own  self,  through 
the  mode  of  apprehension.  Through  the  mode 
of  dynamic  objective  apprehension,  which  in 
our  day  we  have  gradually  come  to  call  im- 
agination, a  man  may  in  his  time  add  on  to 
himself  the  whole  of  the  universe,  by  increas- 
ing pristine  realization  of  the  universal.  This 
in  mysticism  is  called  the  progress  to  infinity 
—that  is,  in  the  modern,  truly  male  mysticism. 
The  older  female  mysticism  means  something 
different  by  the  infinite. 

But  anyhow  there  it  is.  The  attaining  to 
the  Infinite,  about  which  the  mystics  have 
rhapsodized,  is  a  definite  process  in  the  devel- 
oping unconscious,  but  a  process  in  the  devel- 
opment only  of  the  objective-apprehensive 
,centers — an  exclusive  process,  naturally. 

A  soul  cannot  come  into  its  own  through 
that  love  alone  which  is  unison.  If  it  stress  the 


100  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

one  mode,  the  sympathetic  mode,  beyond  a 
certain  point,  it  breaks  its  own  integrity,  and 
corruption  sets  in  in  the  living  organism.  On 
both  planes  of  love,  upper  and  lower,  the  two 
modes  must  act  complementary  to  one  another, 
the  sympathetic  and  the  separatist.  It  is  the 
absolute  failure  to  see  this,  that  has  torn  the 
modern  world  into  two  halves,  the  one  half 
warring  for  the  voluntary,  objective,  sepa- 
ratist control,  the  other  for  the  pure  sym- 
pathetic. The  individual  psyche  divided 
against  itself  divides  the  world  against  itself, 
and  an  unthinkable  progress  of  calamity  en- 
sues unless  there  be  a  reconciliation. 

The  goal  of  life  is  the  coming  to  perfection 
of  each  single  individual.  This  cannot  take 
place  without  the  tremendous  interchange  of 
love  from  all  the  four  great  poles  of  the  first, 
basic  field  of  consciousness.  There  must  be 
the  twofold  passionate  flux  of  sympathetic 


THE   LOVER   AND   THE   BELOVED         IOI 

love,  subjective-abdominal  and  objective-de- 
votional, both.  And  there  must  be  the  two- 
fold passional  circuit  of  separatist  realization, 
the  lower,  vital  self-realization,  and  the  up- 
per, intense  realization  of  the  other,  a  realiza- 
tion which  includes  a  recognition  of  abysmal 
otherness.  To  stress  any  one  mode,  any  one 
interchange,  is  to  hinder  all,  and  to  cause  cor- 
ruption in  the  end.  The  human  psyche  must 
have  strength  and  pride  to  accept  the  whole 
fourfold  nature  of  its  own  creative  activity. 


CHAPTER   VI 

HUMAN  RELATIONS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

THE  AIM  of  this  little  book  is  merely  to 
establish  the  smallest  foothold  in  the  swamp 
of  vagueness  which  now  goes  by  the  name  of 
the  unconscious.  At  last  we  form  some  sort 
of  notion  what  the  unconscious  actually  is.  It 
is  that  active  spontaneity  which  rouses  in  each 
individual  organism  at  the  moment  of  fusion 
of  the  parent  nuclei,  and  which,  in  polarized 
connection  with  the  external  universe,  gradu- 
ally evolves  or  elaborates  its  own  individual 
psyche  and  corpus,  bringing  both  mind  and 
body  forth  from  itself.  Thus  it  would  seem 
that  the  term  unconscious  is  only  another  word 
for  life.  But  life  is  a  general  force,  whereas 

the  unconscious  is  essentially  single  and  unique 

102 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  103 

in  each  individual  organism;  it  is  the  active, 
self-evolving  soul  bringing  forth  its  own  in- 
carnation and  self-manifestation.  Which  in- 
carnation and  self-manifestation  seems  to  be 
the  whole  goal  of  the  unconscious  soul:  the 
whole  goal  of  life.  Thus  it  is  that  the  uncon- 
scious brings  forth  not  only  consciousness,  but 
tissue  and  organs  also.  And  all  the  time  the 
working  of  each  organ  depends  on  the  pri- 
mary spontaneous-conscious  center  of  which 
it  is  the  issue — if  you  like,  the  soul-center. 
And  consciousness  is  like  a  web  woven  finally 
in  the  mind  from  the  various  silken  strands 
spun  forth  from  the  primal  center  of  the  un- 
conscious. 

But  the  unconscious  is  never  an  abstraction, 
never  to  be  abstracted.  It  is  never  an  ideal 
entity.  It  is  always  concrete.  In  the  very  first 
instance,  it  is  the  glinting  nucleus  of  the  ovule. 
And  proceeding  from  this,  it  is  the  chain  or 


104  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

constellation  of  nuclei  which  derive  directly 
from  this  first  spark.  And  further  still  it  is 
the  great  nerve-centers  of  the  human  body,  in 
which  the  primal  and  pristine  nuclei  still  act 
direct.  The  nuclei  are  centers  of  spontaneous 
consciousness.  It  seems  as  if  their  bright  grain 
were  germ-consciousness,  consciousness  ger- 
minating forever.  If  that  is  a  mystery,  it  is 
not  my  fault.  Certainly  it  is  not  mysticism. 
It  is  obvious,  demonstrable  scientific  fact,  to 
be  verified  under  the  microscope  and  within 
the  human  psyche,  subjectively  and  object- 
ively, both.  Of  course,  the  subjective  veri- 
fication is  what  men  kick  at.  Thin-minded 
idealists  cannot  bear  any  appeal  to  their  bow- 
els of  comprehension. 

We  can  quite  tangibly  deal  with  the  human 
unconscious.  We  trace  its  source  and  centers 
in  the  great  ganglia  and  nodes  of  the  nervous 
system.  We  establish  the  nature  of  the  spon- 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  1 05 

taneous  consciousness  at  each  of  these  centers; 
we  determine  the  polarity  and  the  direction 
of  the  polarized  flow.  And  from  this  we  know 
the  motion  and  individual  manifestation  of 
the  psyche  itself;  we  also  know  the  motion  and 
rhythm  of  the  great  organs  of  the  body.  For 
at  every  point  psyche  and  functions  are  so 
nearly  identified  that  only  by  holding  our 
breath  can  we  realize  their  duality  in  identifi- 
cation— a  polarized  duality  once  more.  But 
here  is  no  place  to  enter  the  great  investigation 
of  the  duality  and  polarization  of  the  vital- 
creative  activity  and  the  mechanico-material 
activity.  The  two  are  two  in  one,  a  polarized 
quality.  They  are  unthinkably  different. 

On  the  first  field  of  human  conscious — the 
first  plane  of  the  unconscious — we  locate  four 
great  spontaneous  centers,  two  below  the  dia- 
phragm, two  above.  These  four  centers  con- 
trol the  four  greatest  organs.  And  they  give 


106  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

rise  to  the  whole  basis  of  human  conscious- 
ness. Functional  and  psychic  at  once,  this  is 
their  first  polar  duality. 

But  the  polarity  is  further.  The  horizontal 
division  of  the  diaphragm  divides  man  for- 
ever into  his  individual  duality,  the  duality 
of  the  upper  and  lower  man,  the  two  great 
bodies  of  upper  and  lower  consciousness  and 
function.  This  is  the  horizontal  line. 

The  vertical  division  between  the  voluntary 
and  the  sympathetic  systems,  the  line  of  di- 
vision between  the  spinal  system  and  the  great 
plexus-system  of  the  front  of  the  human  body, 
forms  the  second  distinction  into  duality.  It 
is  the  great  difference  between  the  soft,  recipi- 
ent front  of  the  body  and  the  wall  of  the  back. 
The  front  of  the  body  is  the  live  end  of  the 
magnet.  The  back  is  the  closed  opposition. 
And  again  there  are  two  parallel  streams  of 
function  and  consciousness,  vertically  separate 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  1 07 

now.  This  is  the  vertical  line  of  division. 
And  the  horizontal  line  and  the  vertical  line 
form  the  cross  of  all  existence  and  being.  And 
even  this  is  not  mysticism — no  more  than  the 
ancient  symbols  used  iri  botany  or  biology. 

On  the  first  field  of  human  consciousness, 
which  is  the  basis  of  life  and  consciousness, 
are  the  four  first  poles  of  spontaneity.  These 
have  their  fourfold  polarity  within  the  indi- 
vidual, again  figured  by  the  cross.  But  the 
individual  is  never  purely  a  thing-by-himself. 
He  cannot  exist  save  in  polarized  relation  to 
the  external  universe,  a  relation  both  func- 
tional and  psychic-dynamic.  Development 
takes  place  only  from  the  polarized  circuits 
of  the  dynamic  unconscious,  and  these  circuits 
must  be  both  individual  and  extra-individual. 
There  must  be  the  circuit  of  which  the  com- 
plementary pole  is  external  to  the  individual. 

That  is,  in  the  first  place  there  must  be  the 


108   PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

other  individual.  There  must  be  a  polarized 
connection  with  the  other  individual — or  even 
other  individuals.  On  the  first  field  there  are 
four  poles  in  each  individual.  So  that  the 
first,  the  basic  field  of  extra-individual  con- 
sciousness contains  eight  poles — an  eightfold 
polarity,  a  fourfold  circuit.  It  may  be  that 
between  two  individuals,  even  mother  and 
child,  the  polarity  may  be  established  only 
fourfold,  a  dual  circuit.  It  may  be  that  one 
circuit  of  spontaneous  consciousness  may  never 
be  fully  established.  This  means,  for  a  child, 
a  certain  deficiency  in  development,  a  psychic 
inadequacy. 

So  we  are  again  face  to  face  with  the  basic 
problem  of  human  conduct.  No  human  be- 
ing can  develop  save  through  the  polarized 
connection  with  other  beings.  This  circuit  of 
polarized  unison  precedes  all  mind  and  all 
knowing.  It  is  anterior  to  and  ascendant  over 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  109 

the  human  will.  And  yet  the  mind  and  the 
will  can  both  interfere  with  the  dynamic  cir- 
cuit, an  idea,  like  a  stone  wedged  in  a 
delicate  machine,  can  arrest  one  whole  proc- 
ess of  psychic  interaction  and  spontaneous 
growth. 

How  then?  Man  doth  not  live  by  bread 
alone.  It  is  time  we  made  haste  to  settle  the 
bread  question,  which  after  all  is  only  the 
A  B  C  of  social  economies,  and  proceeded  to 
devote  our  attention  to  this  much  more  pro- 
found and  vital  question :  how  to  establish  and 
maintain  the  circuit  of  vital  polarity  from 
which  the  psyche  actually  develops,  as  the 
body  develops  from  the  circuit  of  alimentation 
and  respiration.  We  have  reached  the  stage 
where  we  can  settle  the  alimentation  and  res- 
piration problems  almost  off-hand.  But  woe 
betide  us,  the  unspeakable  agony  we  suffer 
from  the  failure  to  establish  and  maintain  the 


1 10  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

vital  circuits  between  ourselves  and  the  ef- 
fectual correspondent,  the  other  human  be- 
ing, other  human  beings,  and  all  the  extra- 
neous universe.  The  tortures  of  psychic  star- 
vation which  civilized  people  proceed  to  suf- 
fer, once  they  have  solved  for  themselves  the 
bread-and-butter  problem  of  alimentation, 
will  not  bear  thought.  Delicate,  creative  de- 
sire, sending  forth  its  fine  vibrations  in  search 
of  the  true  pole  of  magnetic  rest  in  another 
human  being  or  beings,  how  it  is  thwarted,  in- 
sulated by  a  whole  set  of  India-rubber  ideas 
and  ideals  and  conventions,  till  every  form  of 
perversion  and  death-desire  sets  in!  How  can 
we  escape  neuroses?  Psychoanalysis  won't 
tell  us.  But  a  mere  shadow  of  understand- 
ing of  the  true  unconscious  will  give  us  the 
hint. 

The  amazingly  difficult  and  vital  business 
of  human  relationship  has  been  almost  laugh- 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  III 

ably  underestimated  in  our  epoch.  All  this 
nonsense  about  love  and  unselfishness,  more 
crude  and  repugnant  than  savage  fetish-wor- 
ship. Love  is  a  thing  to  be  learned,  through 
centuries  of  patient  effort.  It  is  a  difficult, 
complex  maintenance  of  individual  integrity 
throughout  the  incalculable  processes  of  inter- 
human-polarity.  Even  on  the  first  great  plane 
of  consciousness,  four  prime  poles  in  each  in- 
dividual, four  powerful  circuits  possible  be- 
tween two  individuals,  and  each  of  the  four 
circuits  to  be  established  to  perfection  and  yet 
maintained  in  pure  equilibrium  with  all  the 
others.  Who  can  do  it?  Nobody.  Yet  we 
have  all  got  to  do  it,  or  else  suffer  ascetic  tor- 
tures of  starvation  and  privation  or  of  distor- 
tion and  overstrain  and  slow  collapse  into  cor- 
ruption. The  whole  of  life  is  one  long,  blind 
effort  at  an  established  polarity  with  the  outer 
universe,  human  and  non-human;  and  the 


112   PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

whole  of  modern  life  is  a  shrieking  failure. 
It  is  our  own  fault. 

The  actual  evolution  of  the  individual 
psyche  is  a  result  of  the  interaction  between 
the  individual  and  the  outer  universe.  Which 
means  that  just  as  a  child  in  the  womb  grows 
as  a  result  of  the  parental  blood-stream  which 
nourishes  the  vital  quick  of  the  foetus,  so  does 
every  man  and  woman  grow  and  develop  as  a 
result  of  the  polarized  flux  between  the  spon- 
taneous self  and  some  other  self  or  selves.  It 
is  the  circuit  of  vital  flux  between  itself  and 
another  being  or  beings  which  brings  about 
the  development  and  evolution  of  every  indi- 
vidual psyche  and  physique.  This  is  a  law  of 
life  and  creation,  from  which  we  cannot  es- 
cape. Ascetics  and  voluptuaries  both  try  to 
dodge  this  main  condition,  and  both  succeed 
perhaps  for  a  generation.  But  after  two  gen- 
erations all  collapses.  Man  doth  not  live  by 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  113 

bread  alone.  He  lives  even  more  essentially 
from  the  nourishing  creative  flow  between 
himself  and  another  or  others. 

This  is  the  reality  of  the  extra-individual 
circuits  of  polarity,  those  established  between 
two  or  more  individuals.  But  a  corresponding 
reality  is  that  of  the  internal,  purely  indi- 
vidual polarity — the  polarity  within  a  man 
himself  of  his  upper  and  lower  consciousness, 
and  his  own  voluntary  and  sympathetic  modes. 
Here  is  a  fourfold  interaction  within  the  self. 
And  from  this  fourfold  reaction  within  the 
self  results  that  final  manifestation  which  we 
know  as  mind,  mental  consciousness. 

The  brain  is,  if  we  may  use  the  word,  the 
terminal  instrument  of  the  dynamic  conscious- 
ness. It  transmutes  what  is  a  creative  flux 
into  a  certain  fixed  cypher.  It  prints  off,  like 
a  telegraph  instrument,  the  glyphs  and  grafic 
representations  which  we  call  percepts,  con- 


1 14  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

cepts,  ideas.  It  produces  a  new  reality — the 
ideal.  The  idea  is  another  static  entity,  an- 
other unit  of  the  mechanical-active  and  ma- 
terio-static  universe.  It  is  thrown  off  from 
life,  as  leaves  are  shed  from  a  tree,  or  as 
feathers  fall  from  a  bird.  Ideas  are  the  dry, 
unliving,  inscutient  plumage  which  inter- 
venes between  us  and  the  circumambient  uni- 
verse, forming  at  once  an  insulator  and  an  in- 
strument for  the  subduing  of  the  universe. 
The  mind  is  the  instrument  of  instruments;  it 
is  not  a  creative  reality. 

Once  the  mind  is  awake,  being  in  itself  a 
finality,  it  feels  very  assured.  "The  word  be- 
came flesh,  and  began  to  put  on  airs,"  says 
Norman  Douglas  wittily.  It  is  exactly  what 
happens.  Mentality,  being  automatic  in  its 
principle  like  the  machine,  begins  to  assume 
life.  It  begins  to  affect  life,  to  pretend  to 
make  and  unmake  life.  "In  the  beginning  was 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  115 

the  Word."  This  is  the  presumptuous  mas- 
querading of  the  mind.  The  Word  cannot  be 
the  beginning  of  life.  It  is  the  end  of  life, 
that  which  falls  shed.  The  mind  is  the  dead 
end  of  life.  But  it  has  all  the  mechanical  force 
of  the  non-vital  universe.  It  is  a  great  dynamo 
of  super-mechanical  force.  Given  the  will 
as  accomplice,  it  can  even  arrogate  its  ma- 
chine-motions and  automatizations  over  the 
whole  of  life,  till  every  tree  becomes  a  clipped 
tea-pot  and  every  man  a  useful  mechanism. 
So  we  see  the  brain,  like  a  great  dynamo  and 
accumulator,  accumulating  mechanical  force 
and  presuming  to  apply  this  mechanical  force- 
control  to  the  living  unconscious,  subjecting 
everything  spontaneous  to  certain  machine- 
principles  called  ideals  or  ideas. 

And  the  human  will  assists  in  this  humili- 
ating and  sterilizing  process.  We  don't  know 
what  the  human  will  is.  But  we  do  know  that 


1 1 6  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

it  is  a  certain  faculty  belonging  to  every  living 
organism,  the  faculty  for  self-determination. 
It  is  a  strange  faculty  of  the  soul  itself,  for  its 
own  direction.  The  will  is  indeed  the  faculty 
which  every  individual  possesses  from  the  very 
moment  of  conception,  for  exerting  a  certain 
control  over  the  vital  and  automatic  processes 
of  his  own  evolution.  It  does  not  depend  origi- 
nally on  mind.  Originally  it  is  a  purely  spon- 
taneous control-factor  of  the  living  uncon- 
scious. It  seems  as  if,  primarily,  the  will  and 
the  conscience  were  identical,  in  the  pre- 
mental  state.  It  seems  as  if  the  will  were 
given  as  a  great  balancing  faculty,  the  faculty 
whereby  automatization  is  prevented  in  the 
evolving  psyche.  The  spontaneous  will  reacts 
at  once  against  the  exaggeration  of  any  one 
particular  circuit  of  polarity.  Any  vital  cir- 
cuit— a  fact  known  to  psychoanalysis.  And 
against  this  automatism,  this  degradation  from 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  II J 

the  spontaneous-vital  reality  into  the  me- 
chanic-material reality,  the  human  soul  must 
always  struggle.  And  the  will  is  the  power 
which  the  unique  self  possesses  to  right  itself 
from  automatism. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  free  psyche  really 
collapses,  and  the  will  identifies  itself  with  an 
automatic  circuit.  Then  a  complex  is  set  up, 
a  paranoia.  Then  incipient  madness  sets  in. 
If  the  identification  continues,  the  derange- 
ment becomes  serious.  There  may  come  sud- 
den jolts  of  dislocation  of  the  whole  psychic 
flow,  like  epilepsy.  Or  there  may  come  any 
of  the  known  forms  of  primary  madness. 

The  second  danger  is  that  the  will  shall 
identify  itself  with  the  mind  and  become  an 
instrument  of  the  mind.  The  same  process  of 
automatism  sets  up,  only  now  it  is  slower.  The 
mind  proceeds  to  assume  control  over  every 
organic-psychic  circuit.  The  spontaneous 


1 1 8   PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

flux  is  destroyed,  and  a  certain  automatic  cir- 
cuit substituted.  Now  an  automatic  establish- 
ment of  the  psyche  must,  like  the  building  of 
a  machine,  proceed  according  to  some  definite 
fixed  scheme,  based  upon  certain  fixed  prin- 
ciples. And  it  is  here  that  ideals  and  ideas 
enter.  They  are  the  machine-plan  and  the 
machine-principles  of  an  automatized  psyche. 

So,  humanity  proceeds  to  derange  itself,  to 
automatize  itself  from  the  mental  conscious- 
ness. It  is  a  process  of  derangement,  just  as 
the  fixing  of  the  will  upon  any  other  primary 
process  is  a  derangement.  It  is  a  long,  slow 
development  in  madness.  Quite  justly  do  the 
advanced  Russian  and  French  writers  acclaim 
madness  as  a  great  goal.  It  is  the  genuine 
goal  of  self-automatism,  mental-conscious  su- 
premacy. 

True,  we  must  all  develop  into  mental  con- 
sciousness. But  mental-consciousness  is  not  a 


HUMAN  RELATIONS  119 

goal;  it  is  a  cul-de-sac.  It  provides  us  only 
with  endless  appliances  which  we  can  use  for 
the  all-too-difficult  business  of  coming  to  our 
spontaneous-creative  fullness  of  being.  It 
provides  us  with  means  to  adjust  ourselves  to 
the  external  universe.  It  gives  us  further 
means  for  subduing  the  external,  materio- ' 
mechanical  universe  to  our  great  end  of  crea- 
tive life.  And  it  gives  us  plain  indications  of 
how  to  avoid  falling  into  automatism,  hints 
for  the  applying  of  the  will,  the  loosening  of 
false,  automatic  fixations,  the  brave  adherence 
to  a  profound  soul-impulse.  This  is  the  use 
of  the  mind — a  great  indicator  and  instrument. 
The  mind  as  author  and  director  of  life  is 
anathema. 

So,  the  few  things  we  have  to  say  about  the 
unconscious  end  for  the  moment.  There  is 
almost  nothing  said.  Yet  it  is  a  beginning. 
Still  remain  to  be  revealed  the  other  great 


120  PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

centers  of  the  unconscious.  We  know  four: 
two  pairs.  In  all  there  are  seven  planes.  That 
is,  there  are  six  dual  centers  of  spontaneous 
polarity,  and  then  the  final  one.  That  is,  the 
great  upper  and  lower  consciousness  is  only 
just  broached — the  further  heights  and  depths 
are  not  even  hinted  at.  Nay,  in  public  it  would 
hardly  be  allowed  us  to  hint  at  them.  There 
is  so  much  to  know,  and  every  step  of  the 
progress  in  knowledge  is  a  death  to  the  human 
idealism  which  governs  us  now  so  ruthlessly 
and  vilely.  It  must  die,  and  we  will  break 
free.  But  what  tyranny  is  so  hideous  as  that 
of  an  automatically  ideal  humanity? 


S 


